BX  8495   .A8  R6 
Rogers,  Henry  Wade,  1853- 
Francis  Asbury,  centennial 
addresses 


FRANCIS  ASBURY 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES 

by  y 

JUDGE  HENRY  WADE  ROGERS 
BISHOP  JOSEPH  F.  BERRY 
BISHOP  FRANK  M.  BRISTOL 
BISHOP  FREDERICK  D.  LEETE 


THE  METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN 
NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1917,  by 
THE  METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN 


CONTENTS 

Page 

CENTENNIAL  ADDRESS  ON  FRANCIS 

ASBURY   5 

Judge  Henry  Wade  Rogers 

THEN  AND  NOW   51 

Bishop  Joseph  F.  Berry 

FRANCIS  ASBURY— THE  BISHOP   66 

Bishop  Frank  M.  Bristol 

FRANCIS  ASBURY— ITINERANT   90 

Bishop  Frederick  D.  Leete 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESS 


ON 

FRANCIS  ASBURY 

Delivered  before  the  New  York  East  Conference 
at  Stamford,1  Connecticut,  on  April  5,  1916,  by 
Judge  Henry  Wade  Rogers,  of  the  United  States 
Circuit  Court  of  Appeals. 


1  Jesse  Lee,  in  his  History  of  the  Methodists,  speaking  of  the  Con- 
ference of  1789,  says :  "  We  had  one  new  circuit  in  Connecticut  called 
Stamford,  which  was  the  first  that  was  ever  formed  in  that  State  or  in 
any  of  the  New  England  States.  It  was  my  lot  to  go  to  that  circuit 
alone,  and  to  labor  by  myself.  Another  preacher  was  appointed  to 
the  circuit  with  me,  but  he  failed  and  never  came,  and  I  had  to  labor 
and  suffer  alone  amongst  a  strange  people," 


FRANCIS  ASBURY 


The  centennial  of  the  death  of  Francis 
Asbury  is  a  profoundly  impressive  event. 
History  has  inscribed  his  name  among  the 
greatest  apostles  of  Christianity  in  ancient 
or  modern  times.  The  Methodist  Church 
throughout  the  world  pauses  from  its  labors 
to  commemorate  his  life  and  service. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  grandest  thing, 
next  to  the  radiance  that  flows  from  the 
throne  of  God,  is  the  light  of  a  noble  and 
beautiful  life,  shining  in  benediction  upon 
the  destinies  of  men.  We  are  assembled  to 
commemorate  such  a  life  shining  in  benedic- 
tion upon  the  great  church  to  which  we  be- 
long. Monuments  are  not  built,  nor  mau- 
soleums erected,  nor  eulogies  spoken,  to 
please  the  dead.  No  words  which  can  be  ut- 
tered here  can  reach  that  mysterious  realm  in 
which  the  spirit  of  Asbury  dwells.  Speech 
is  not  for  the  dead  but  for  the  living,  that 
they  may  learn  through  great  examples  to 
live  as  those  who  rendered  service  to  human- 
ity and  to  God. 

7 


8  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


The  character  of  Washington  stands  forth 
"alone  like  some  peak  that  has  no  fellow  in 
the  mountain  range  of  greatness."  The 
character  of  Asbury  towers  solitary  and 
alone  in  American  Methodism,  rising  like  a 
great  peak  high  above  the  mountain  range. 

Asbury  was  born  in  England  on  August 
20,  1745,  in  the  parish  of  Handsworth,  four 
miles  from  Birmingham.  His  parents  were 
poor,  and  at  the  age  of  fourteen  he  was  in- 
dentured to  a  maker  of  buckle  chapes.  His 
school  training  was  meager.  He  received 
simply  the  rudiments  of  an  education  at  the 
village  school,  although  the  parish  in  which 
he  was  born  was  hardly  a  day's  ride  from 
Oxford.  His  school  days  were  short  and 
quite  unpleasant.  The  school  was  unendur- 
able to  him  because  of  the  cruelty  of  the 
teacher.  It  filled  Asbury  with  such  a  hor- 
rible dread  that  with  him  anything  was  pref- 
erable to  going  to  school.  This  deficiency 
of  school  training  later  became  a  source  of 
great  affliction  to  him.  He  refers  to  it  in  his 
J ournal.  "While  I  was  a  traveling  preacher 
in  England,"  he  writes,  "I  was  much 
tempted,  finding  myself  exceedingly  igno- 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  9 


rant  of  almost  everything  a  minister  of  the 
gospel  ought  to  know."  The  schools  gave 
him  little  more  than  the  power  to  read  and 
write  and  cipher.  But  what  he  lacked  in  this 
respect  he  labored  in  his  subsequent  years  to 
supply.  It  was  his  custom  as  he  traveled  his 
circuits  to  ride  with  his  book  open  before  him. 
He  thus  made  himself  master  of  much  sound 
learning.  He  attained  a  knowledge  of  He- 
brew and  Latin  and  Greek.  He  studied  the 
Old  and  the  New  Testament  in  the  lan- 
guages in  which  they  were  written. 

Seminaries  and  colleges  in  this  country 
were  few  in  number.  Washington  himself, 
rich  and  an  aristocrat,  only  had  a  common 
school  education.  It  is  not  at  all  surprising, 
therefore,  that  all  the  early  Methodist 
bishops  were,  like  Asbury,  self -trained  men. 
Whatcoat  at  the  age  of  thirteen  was  ap- 
prenticed to  a  trade.  McKendree's  educa- 
tional advantages  were  also  very  limited,  and 
his  lack  of  early  culture  often  embarrassed 
him.  The  schools  gave  little  to  Enoch 
George,  and  nothing  to  Roberts  save  the 
simplest  elements.  The  educational  oppor- 
tunities of  Elijah  Hedding  were  also  small. 


10  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


Joshua  Soule  and  Beverly  Waugh  were 
boys  of  the  backwoods  and  received  such 
school  training  as  the  backwoods  afforded. 
And  Thomas  A.  Morris  had  school  advan- 
tages of  the  most  meager  character.  John 
Emory  was  the  only  one  of  the  earlier  bishops 
whose  training  was  liberal  according  to  the 
standards  of  his  time.  He  was  a  graduate  of 
Washington  College  in  Maryland,  had  stud- 
ied law  and  been  admitted  to  the  bar.  But 
all  these  men  had  peculiar  force  and  energy 
of  character.  They  were  without  exception 
men  of  consecration  and  moral  and  intellec- 
tual power.  They  possessed  marked  ability 
and  rendered  effective  service.  Some  of  them 
were  eloquent  and  brilliant  preachers.  Sub- 
sequent reading,  observation,  and  study  sup- 
plied the  deficiencies  of  their  earlier  training. 
I  think  no  one  of  them  equaled  Asbury  in  his 
scholastic  attainments. 

When  the  prophet  Samuel  went  forth  to 
anoint  a  successor  to  Saul  he  had  the  children 
of  Jesse  pass  before  him,  and  the  prophet 
said  unto  Jesse,  "The  Lord  hath  not  chosen 
these."  And  then  Samuel  said  unto  Jesse, 
"Are  here  all  thy  children  ?"  Jesse  answered, 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  11 


"There  remaineth  yet  the  youngest."  Sam- 
uel said,  "Send  and  fetch  him."  Jesse  did  as 
he  was  bidden,  and  sent  and  brought  David 
in,  and  he  was  goodly  to  look  upon,  and  the 
Lord  said,  "This  is  he."  Then  Samuel  took 
the  horn  of  oil  and  anointed  David  in  the 
midst  of  his  brethren;  and  the  spirit  of  the 
Lord  came  upon  him  from  that  day  forward. 

At  Bristol,  in  England,  on  a  day  in  Au- 
gust, 1771,  John  Wesley  was  holding  Con- 
ference. He  called  for  volunteers  for  the 
work  in  America.  A  number  volunteered 
and  passed  in  review  before  him.  Asbury 
was  one  of  them,  and  he  chose  him  to  be  his 
"assistant"  in  America.  The  title  implied 
the  general  superintendence  of  the  work  in 
this  country,  although  Asbury,  like  David, 
was  the  youngest  man.  At  the  time  of  his 
appointment  he  was  twenty-six  years  of  age. 
But  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  was  upon  him  as 
it  was  upon  David  from  that  day  forth.  Be- 
fore the  Conference  assembled  he  had  been 
thinking  for  a  half  a  year  that  perhaps  it  was 
his  duty  to  go  to  America.  He  had  laid  the 
matter  before  the  Lord,  being  unwilling  to 
do  his  own  will  or  to  run  before  he  was  sent. 


12  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


During  this  time  his  trials  had  been  very 
great,  which  he  thought  the  Lord  permitted 
to  prove  and  try  him  in  order  to  prepare  him 
for  future  usefulness.  When  he  went  to  the 
Bristol  Conference  he  had,  he  said,  not  one 
penny  of  money;  but  the  Lord  soon  opened 
the  hearts  of  friends  who  supplied  him  with 
clothes  and  ten  pounds.  After  it  was  decided 
that  he  was  to  go  to  America,  he  went  home 
to  acquaint  his  parents  with  his  great  under- 
taking, which  he  opened  in  as  gentle  manner 
as  possible.  Though  it  was  grievous  to  flesh 
and  blood,  they  consented  to  let  him,  their 
only  surviving  child,  undertake  the  work  be- 
yond the  sea.  They  never  were  to  see  each 
other  again,  for  Asbury  was  kept  so  busy  in 
America  that  he  could  never  find  time  for  a 
journey  back  to  the  home  from  whence  he 
came.  What  would  have  happened  if  his 
parents  had  not  consented  to  his  departure 
is  not  doubtful.  "He  that  loveth  father  or 
mother  more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me." 
In  a  letter  to  his  mother  he  writes :  "As  for 
me,  I  know  what  I  am  called  to ;  it  is  to  give 
up  all.  .  .  .  Let  others  condemn  me  as 
being  without  natural  affection,  stubborn, 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  18 


disobedient  to  parents,  or  what  they  will.  It 
does  not  alter  the  case.  It  is  a  small  matter 
to  be  judged  of  men."  In  his  heart,  however, 
filial  love  was  strong  and  tender.  In  one  of 
his  letters  to  his  father,  after  he  had  been  in 
America  for  years,  he  wrote:  "I  last  even- 
ing made  arrangements  for  a  remittance  to 
you.  .  .  .  My  salary  is  sixty-four  dollars ; 
I  have  sold  my  watch  and  library,  and  will 
sell  my  shirts  before  you  should  want.  .  .  . 
Your  son  Francis  is  a  man  of  honor  and  con- 
science. As  my  father  and  mother  never  dis- 
graced me  by  an  act  of  dishonesty,  I  hope  to 
echo  back  the  same  sound  of  an  upright  man. 
I  am  well  satisfied  that  the  Lord  saw  fit  that 
you  should  be  my  parents  rather  than  the 
king  or  queen  or  any  of  the  great." 

Throughout  the  American  Revolution 
Wesley  was  much  concerned  over  the  rela- 
tions between  the  colonies  and  Great  Brit- 
ain. Before  open  hostilities  began  he 
stated  in  print  that  he  did  not  defend  the 
measures  which  had  been  taken  with  regard 
to  America,  and  that  he  doubted  whether 
any  man  could  defend  them.  He  advised 
the  Methodists  to  vote  for  candidates  who 


14  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


favored  conciliation  with  America.  He 
warned  the  advisers  of  the  Crown  that 
the  people  of  America  were  oppressed; 
that  they  were  asking  for  nothing  more 
than  their  legal  rights.  He  said  they 
were  "enthusiasts  of  liberty,"  contending  for 
hearth  and  altar  and  for  wife  and  children. 
He  implored  the  prime  minister,  for  God's 
sake  and  the  king's,  not  to  permit  his  sov- 
ereign to  walk  in  the  way  of  Rehoboam  and 
of  Charles  the  First.  In  1775  he  sent  his 
preachers  in  America  excellent  advice.  He 
wrote  them:  "You  were  never  in  your  lives 
in  so  critical  a  situation  as  you  are  at  this 
time.  It  is  your  part  to  be  peacemakers; 
to  be  loving  and  tender  to  all,  but  to  addict 
yourselves  to  no  party.  .  .  .  Say  not  one 
word  against  one  or  the  other  side."  Later 
he  changed  his  views.  So  pronounced  was  his 
devotion  to  George  the  Third  that  it  was  said 
that  England  never  had  a  more  loyal  subject 
than  John  Wesley.  In  the  summer  of  1775 
he  issued  what  he  entitled  "A  Calm  Address 
to  our  American  Colonies."  It  was  sold  for  a 
penny  and  was  bought  by  forty  thousand 
purchasers  who  were  amazed  to  find  that  it 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  15 


was  simply  an  abbreviated  version  of  Dr. 
Johnson's  pamphlet  on  "Taxation  No  Tyr- 
anny," which  had  been  published  in  the 
spring  of  the  same  year.  People  were 
amazed  at  Wesley's  changed  attitude,  as  up 
to  that  time  he  had  publicly  sympathized 
with  the  colonists.  Wesley  declared  that  he 
himself  would  no  more  continue  in  fellowship 
with  Methodists  who  hated  the  king  and 
Lord  North  than  with  Sabbath-breakers, 
thieves,  or  drunkards,  or  common  swearers. 
This  he  declared  in  an  address  issued  in  1777. 
He  stated  in  that  address  that  after  bawling 
for  liberty  no  liberty  was  left  in  America. 
That  the  lords  of  Congress  were  as  absolute 
as  the  emperor  of  Morocco,  while  in  England 
the  fullest  liberty  was  enjoyed. 

Wesley's  "Calm  Address"  made  trouble 
for  him  at  home,  and  it  also  made  trouble  for 
his  preachers  in  America.  Copies  of  the  ad- 
dress got  into  the  hands  of  our  countrymen. 
The  result  was  that  until  the  war  was  near  its 
end  a  Methodist  preacher  was  an  object  of 
suspicion  and  distrust.  The  position  of  the 
English  preachers  Wesley  had  sent  over  was 
one  of  actual  peril.   In  some  of  the  colonies 


10  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


oaths  of  allegiance  were  prescribed  to  be  ad- 
ministered to  all  doubtful  persons.  The  oath 
was  to  take  up  arms  in  aid  of  the  colonies  if 
called  to  do  so  by  the  colonial  authorities. 
The  English  itinerants  were  unwilling  to 
take  the  oath,  and  all  but  Asbury  returned  to 
England.  He  remained  at  his  post.  Wesley 
was  severely  censured  for  his  utterances  and 
was  accused  of  having  turned  politician. 
The  Methodists  were  thrown  into  a  "fever  of 
excitement."  Wesley's  attitude  and  the 
withdrawal  of  the  English  preachers  from 
the  country  might  easily  have  ended  Amer- 
ican Methodism,  and  would  have  done  so  but 
for  Asbury.  In  his  Journal,  under  date  of 
March  19,  1776,  Asbury  wrote  that  he  had 
received  an  affectionate  letter  from  Mr. 
Wesley,  and  added  that  he  was  truly  sorry 
that  that  venerable  man  had  ever  dipped 
into  the  politics  of  America.  "My  desire," 
writes  Asbury,  "is  to  live  in  love  and  peace 
with  all  men ;  to  do  them  no  harm  but  all  the 
good  I  can.  However,  it  discovers  Mr.  Wes- 
ley's conscientious  attachment  to  the  govern- 
ment under  which  he  lived.  Had  he  been  a 
subject  of  America,  no  doubt  but  he  would 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  17 


have  been  as  zealous  an  advocate  of  the 
American  cause.  But  some  inconsiderate 
persons  have  taken  occasion  to  censure  the 
Methodists  in  America  on  account  of  Mr. 
Wesley's  political  sentiments." 

When  Rankin,  who  had  been  sent  over  by 
Wesley,  found  how  the  war  spirit  dominated 
the  colonists,  he  was  unwilling  to  remain. 
He  could  not  reconcile  the  American  spirit 
with  his  sense  of  loyalty,  and  so  wrote  As- 
bury  that  he  was  going  to  return.  Asbury's 
reply  deserves  our  gratitude.   It  follows: 

"I  can  by  no  means  leave  such  a  field  for 
gathering  souls  to  Christ  as  we  have  in 
America.  It  would  be  an  everlasting  dis- 
honor to  the  Methodists  that  we  should  all 
leave  three  thousand  souls  who  desire  to 
commit  themselves  to  our  care;  neither  is  it 
the  part  of  a  good  shepherd  to  leave  his  flock 
in  time  of  danger ;  therefore  I  am  determined 
by  the  grace  of  God  not  to  leave  them,  let  the 
consequence  be  what  it  may." 

I  may  add  that  the  war  was  a  grief  to  his 
soul.  The  righteous,  he  writes,  are  blessed 
with  a  pacific  spirit  and  are  bound  for  a 
kingdom  of  peace,  where 


18  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


"No  horrid  alarum  of  war 

Shall  break  our  eternal  repose; 
No  sound  of  the  trumpet  is  there 
Where  the  spirit  of  Jesus  o'erflows." 

Asbury  never  formally  renounced  his  alle- 
giance to  the  British  government,  and  died  a 
British  subject.  But  he  was  thoroughly 
American  in  all  his  views  and  feelings. 

Among  the  earliest  of  American  ecclesias- 
tical problems  was  that  which  for  more  than 
a  hundred  years  vexed  and  embarrassed  the 
*  Anglican  Church  throughout  the  colonies, 
and  which  very  considerably  troubled  the 
Methodists.  Bishops  were  needed  to  ordain 
and  supervise  the  preachers.  The  English 
bishops  deplored  what  they  called  the  spir- 
itual desolation  of  America,  but  they  per- 
sistently refused  to  consecrate  an  American 
bishop.  The  reason  was  not  wholly  ecclesias- 
tical. It  was  much  more  political.  The 
Anglican  Church  was  a  state  church,  and  the 
king  was  opposed  to  an  American  episcopate, 
lest  he  give  offense  to  the  dissenters  through- 
out the  colonies.  Samuel  Adams  and  the 
Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians  were 
also  dreading  lest  England  should  attempt 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  19 


to  impose  upon  them  an  episcopaey.  The 
king  knew  any  attempt  of  that  sort  would 
be  deeply  resented.  The  English  Church, 
therefore,  had  persistently  refused  to  comply 
with  the  demand  which  almost  from  the  first 
settlement  of  the  country  the  Episcopalians 
of  America  had  continuously  made  for  an 
American  episcopate.  As  one  of  the  Epis- 
copal bishops  has  said,  the  wonder  was  while 
this  controversy  raged  that  the  gates  of  hell 
did  not  prevail  against  the  church.  It  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at,  therefore,  that  when  Wes- 
ley besought  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
to  consecrate  a  bishop  for  the  Methodists  in 
America  his  request  was  promptly  denied. 
Wesley  was  a  High  Churchman,  but  he  had 
strong  convictions  on  this  subject,  and  so  in 
1784,  at  Bristol,  in  a  private  room,  he  laid  his 
hands  in  ordination  on  Coke  and  set  him 
apart  as  superintendent  of  the  Methodist 
churches  in  America.  Coke  came  to  the 
United  States  bringing  a  letter  from  Wesley 
stating  that  he  and  Asbury  were  joint  su- 
perintendents. A  General  Conference  was 
called  to  meet  in  Baltimore  on  December  25, 
1784.  When  it  assembled,  it  decided  to  form 


20  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


a  distinct  and  separate  church,  and,  upon  the 
suggestion  of  John  Dickins,  it  was  unani- 
mously resolved  that  it  should  be  called  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  They  next 
declared  the  office  of  general  superintendent 
elective.  This  done,  they  by  a  unanimous 
vote  elected  Thomas  Coke  and  Francis 
Asbury  general  superintendents.  At  that 
time  Asbury  was  still  an  unordained 
preacher  and  had  never  administered  the 
ordinances  of  the  church.  Along  with  the 
rest  of  the  Methodist  preachers,  he  was  ac- 
customed up  to  that  time  to  receive  the  sacra- 
ment at  the  hands  of  Episcopal  ministers. 
He  was  thirty-nine  years  of  age,  and  had 
been  preaching  in  America  for  thirteen 
years.  After  his  election  as  general  superin- 
tendent he  was  privately  ordained  deacon 
and  on  the  next  day  publicly  ordained  an 
elder.  After  their  consecration  they  soon 
called  themselves  "bishops,"  for  which  they 
were  rebuked  by  Wesley,  but  without  effect. 
Asbury  was  now  a  bishop. 

"The  rude  and  storm-vexed  times  required 
A  pilot  formed  by  nature  to  command." 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  21 


Upon  such  a  man  the  choice  had  fallen. 

He  was  the  first  bishop  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  ordained  in  the  United 
States.  Coke  never  identified  himself  ex- 
clusively with  American  Methodism  and 
after  a  time  returned  to  England.  Asbury 
is  regarded  as  the  pioneer  bishop  of  Method- 
ism. He  was  more,  for  he  was  the  first 
bishop  of  any  church  consecrated  on  Amer- 
ican soil.  In  1783,  however,  a  little  company 
of  ten  out  of  fourteen  Episcopal  ministers 
met  in  solemn  conclave  in  a  rude  and  lonely 
cottage  in  the  small  town  of  Woodbury  in 
Connecticut.  They  chose  Samuel  Seabury 
to  be  their  bishop  and  at  their  request  he  went 
to  England  to  seek  consecration.  The  arch- 
bishop and  bishops  of  England  declined  to 
consecrate  him.  The  war  was  over,  but  the 
king  was  still  unwilling  that  a  bishop  should 
be  consecrated  for  America  who  came  with 
no  credentials  from  the  authorities  of  the 
state.  And  so  it  was  that  Seabury,  rejected 
in  London,  went  over  to  Aberdeen,  and  in 
November,  1784,  a  few  weeks  before  the  con- 
secration of  Asbury,  was  consecrated  in  an 
upper  room  in  the  rectory  of  the  proscribed 


22  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


and  persecuted  Episcopal  Church  of  Scot- 
land. The  consecration  of  these  two  men 
closes  one  of  the  most  interesting  chapters  in 
American  ecclesiastical  history.  Seabury 
was  a  graduate  of  Yale,  and  had  studied 
medicine  and  theology  in  Scotland,  and  be- 
fore he  was  chosen  bishop  had  had  the  degree 
of  Doctor  of  Divinity  conferred  upon  him  by 
Oxford  University.  As  a  scholar  he  was 
Asbury's  superior.  But  in  piety,  zeal,  and 
labor  and  consecration,  and  in  effective  serv- 
ice, no  man  was  superior  to  Francis  Asbury. 

Five  years  later,  in  1789,  John  Carroll,  of 
Baltimore,  a  graduate  of  a  Jesuit  College  in 
Brussels  and  the  cousin  of  Charles  Carroll, 
the  richest  man  in  America,  was  appointed 
the  first  Roman  Catholic  bishop  of  the 
United  States. 

Asbury  was  commanding  in  appearance, 
although  in  stature  he  was  only  five  feet  and 
nine  inches  tall.  He  weighed  one  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds.  His  features  were  rugged, 
his  face  furrowed  deep  with  wrinkles.  His 
nose  was  prominent,  his  mouth  large.  His 
eyes  were  of  a  bluish  cast,  and  are  said  to 
have  been  so  piercing  that  it  seemed  to  those 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  23 


upon  whom  he  fixed  his  glance  as  if  he  were 
reading  their  inmost  thoughts.  His  voice 
was  full-toned,  clear,  and  under  perfect  con- 
trol. At  times  it  sounded  in  tones  of  thunder 
that  caused  the  bravest  to  shudder  and  the 
most  profligate  to  tremble.  Again  it  was  so 
full  of  tender  pathos  that  all  eyes  filled  with 
tears.  As  became  his  office  and  calling  and 
according  to  the  fashion  of  the  times,  he  wore 
knee  breeches,  and  sometimes  silver  shoe 
buckles,  and  a  single-breasted  frock  coat  but- 
toned to  the  throat.  Trousers  began  to  be 
worn  about  the  time  Mr.  Jefferson  became 
President,  but  Asbury  would  have  none  of 
them,  and  never  became  reconciled  to  the 
innovation.  He  had  little  patience  and  very 
unhappy  moments  when  preachers  appeared 
before  him  clad  in  what  he  regarded  as  a 
modern  abomination.  He  wore  a  broad- 
brimmed  hat  with  a  very  low  crown,  and  his 
costume  much  resembled  that  worn  by  the 
Quakers.  In  preaching  he  continued  for 
years  to  wear  the  black  gown,  cassock,  and 
band  which  he  wore  in  England,  and  which 
Wesley  always  wore.  It  was  some  time  after 
his  Episcopal  ordination  that  he  consented  to 


24  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


lay  them  aside.  Jesse  Lee  had  seriously  ob- 
jected to  their  use  and  was  grieved  with  As- 
bury.  He  thought  plainness  of  dress  and 
simplicity  of  manner  would  make  it  easier  to 
reach  the  common  people.  In  the  changed 
conditions  of  the  life  of  to-day  Methodist 
preachers  might  well  resume  the  gown  that 
Asbury  and  Whatcoat  laid  aside. 

No  man  could  be  in  Asbury's  presence 
without  being  impressed  with  profound  re- 
spect. His  natural  dignity  and  the  greatness 
of  his  character  distinguished  him  among 
men.  He  was  gifted  with  fine  conversational 
powers,  and  possessed  a  cheerful  humor.  He 
had  a  social  charm  that  made  him  a  welcome 
guest  in  every  social  circle.  But  at  times  a 
constitutional  melancholy  depressed  him,  due 
no  doubt  to  the  bodily  ills  which  continually 
afflicted  him. 

Abel  Stevens,  in  speaking  of  the  early 
Methodists  in  America,  says :  "Among  these 
pioneers,  Asbury,  by  common  consent,  stood 
first  and  chief.  There  was  something  in  his 
person,  his  eye,  his  mien,  and  in  the  music  of 
his  voice  which  interested  all  who  saw  and 
heard  him.   He  possessed  much  natural  wit, 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  25 


and  was  capable  of  the  severest  satire;  but 
grace  and  good  sense  so  far  predominated 
that  he  never  descended  to  anything  beneath 
the  dignity  of  a  man  and  a  Christian  minister. 
In  prayer  he  excelled.  'He  prayed,'  says 
Garrettson,  'the  best  and  prayed  the  most  of 
any  man  I  ever  knew.'  " 

"I  purpose  to  rise  at  four  o'clock,"  Asbury 
writes  in  the  Journal,  "as  often  as  I  can  and 
spend  two  hours  in  prayer  and  meditation, 
to  take  my  room  at  eight  and  pray  and  medi- 
tate an  hour."  "My  desire  is  that  prayer 
should  mix  with  every  thought,  every  word, 
every  action,  that  all  might  ascend  as  a  holy, 
acceptable  sacrifice  to  God."  Another  time 
he  writes:  "My  present  mode  of  conduct  is 
as  follows:  to  read  one  hundred  pages  a  day, 
usually  to  pray  in  public  five  times  a  day,  to 
preach  in  the  open  air  every  other  day,  to  lec- 
ture in  prayer  meeting  every  evening."  It 
is  said  that  whenever  he  ate  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  kneel  in  prayer,  and  that  he  closed 
the  meal  as  he  began  it. 

Asbury  established  in  America  the  work  of 
the  circuit  riders.  He  believed  that  the  life 
and  power  of  Methodism  depended  upon  the 


26  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


itinerancy.  That  feature  of  our  polity  was 
disappearing  at  the  time  he  arrived  in  Amer- 
ica. If  he  had  not  withstood  the  preachers, 
the  whole  Methodist  movement  in  the  New 
World  would  have  soon  ended.  In  those 
times  Methodism  and  a  settled  ministry  were 
incompatible.  He  was  thoroughly  grounded 
in  his  belief  that  a  Methodist  preacher  should 
be  as  movable  "as  a  soldier  on  the  land  or  a 
sailor  on  the  sea."  By  keeping  them  in  mo- 
tion he  kept  them  energetic.  It  was  a  wise 
economy,  good  for  the  preachers  and  good 
for  the  societies.  It  was  a  military  drill  for 
the  preachers,  and  it  enabled  the  societies  to 
have  the  advantages  of  the  varied  gifts  of 
different  preachers.  The  indisposition  of  the 
preachers  to  travel  much  was  a  sore  affliction 
to  him.  I  read  from  his  Journal  an  entry  he 
made  upon  the  subject:  "I  have  not  yet  the 
thing  which  I  seek,  a  circulation  of  the 
preachers  to  avoid  partiality  and  popularity. 
However,  I  am  fixed  to  the  Methodist  plan, 
and  do  what  I  do  faithfully  as  unto  God.  I 
expect  trouble  is  at  hand.  That  I  expected 
when  I  left  England  and  I  am  willing  to 
suffer,  yea,  to  die,  rather  than  betray  so  good 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  27 


a  cause  by  any  means.  It  will  be  a  hard 
matter  to  stand  against  all  opposition, 

'As  an  iron  pillar  strong 
And  steadfast  as  a  wall  of  brass;' 

but  through  Christ  strengthening  me  I  can 
do  all  things.  My  brethren  seem  unwilling 
to  leave  the  cities,  but  I  will  show  them  the 
way.  I  have  nothing  to  seek  but  the  glory  of 
God,  nothing  to  fear  but  his  displeasure.  I 
have  come  to  this  country  with  an  upright 
intention,  and  through  the  grace  of  God  I 
will  make  it  appear.  I  am  determined  that 
no  man  shall  bias  me  with  soft  words  and 
fair  speeches;  nor  will  I  ever  fear  the  face 
of  man,  or  know  any  man  after  the  flesh,  if 
I  beg  my  bread  from  door  to  door;  but, 
whomsoever  I  please  or  displease,  I  will  be 
faithful  to  God,  to  the  people,  and  to  my  own 
soul."  These  were  brave  words  and  he  meant 
every  one  of  them. 

The  Methodist  Church  is  the  result  of  mis- 
sions. And  it  has  itself  always  been  a  mis- 
sionary church.  The  author  of  Ecce  Homo 
wrote  that  Christianity  would  sacrifice  its 
divinity  if  it  abandoned  its  missionary  char- 


28  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


acter.  The  Missionary  Society  of  our 
church  was  organized  in  1819.  This  was 
three  years  after  Asbury's  death.  But  it  is 
a  mistake  to  date  the  origin  of  our  mission- 
ary work  from  the  time  of  the  organization 
of  that  society.  Asbury  was  the  originator 
of  Methodist  missions  in  America.  He  sent 
out  his  preachers  into  the  farthest  and  most 
destitute  frontier  settlements  and  then  col- 
lected money  all  over  the  country  for  their 
support.  He  did  more  and  sent  missionaries 
into  Nova  Scotia  and  Canada.  The  Mite 
Fund  which  bears  his  name  he  established  to 
send  out  German,  French,  and  Spanish  mis- 
sionaries and  to  provide  for  the  necessities  of 
preachers  in  want. 

The  first  Sunday  school  on  this  continent 
was  established  by  Asbury  in  1786  in  Han- 
over County,  Virginia,  in  the  house  of 
Thomas  Crenshaw.  He  had  previously  had 
incorporated  into  the  Discipline  the  follow- 
ing paragraph:  "Where  there  are  ten  chil- 
dren whose  parents  are  in  society,  meet  them 
at  least  an  hour  every  week."  Later  he 
added  the  following  admonition:  "Let  us 
labor  as  the  heart  and  soul  of  one  man  to 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  29 


establish  Sunday  Schools  in  or  near  the 
place  of  public  worship.  Let  persons  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  bishops,  elders,  deacons,  or 
preachers  to  teach  gratis  all  that  will  attend 
and  have  a  capacity  to  learn,  from  six  o'clock 
in  the  morning  until  ten,  and  from  two 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  until  six,  where  it 
does  not  interfere  with  public  worship."  The 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  to-day  has  the 
largest  Sunday  school  constituency  of  any 
church  in  the  world.  It  numbers  more  than 
four  million  scholars.  What  hath  God 
wrought !  The  Sunday  schools  hold  the  key 
to  the  church's  future. 

The  great  problem  of  Methodism  in  our 
day  is  its  unification.  That  Methodism  in  the 
United  States  is  still  divided  is  a  source  of 
the  most  profound  regret.  Asbury  at  all 
times  stood  for  a  united  Methodism  and  op- 
posed with  all  his  influence  the  divisions  in 
the  church  which  at  different  periods  of  his 
career  were  threatened.  In  a  letter  to  Jesse 
Lee  he  wrote:  "You  and  every  man  that 
thinks  properly  will  find  it  will  never  do  to 
divide  the  North  from  the  South.  Method- 
ism is  union  all  over;  union  in  exchange  of 


30  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


preachers ;  union  in  exchange  of  sentiments ; 
union  in  exchange  of  interest ;  we  must  draw 
resources  from  the  center  to  the  circumfer- 
ence." 

Bishop  Asbury  was  not  a  parliamentar- 
ian. He  had  no  use  for  rules  of  order. 
Bishop  McKendree,  who  was  elected  in  1808, 
was  the  first  bishop  who  conducted  the  busi- 
ness of  a  Conference  according  to  parlia- 
mentary law.  When  the  General  Confer- 
ence of  1812  met,  McKendree  formulated 
and  presented  an  order  of  business.  To  As- 
bury this  was  a  new  idea,  and  after  Mc- 
Kendree had  read  his  proposal,  Asbury,  ven- 
erable in  years  and  patriarchal  in  appear- 
ance, immediately  arose  and  addressed  him 
saying,  "I  have  something  to  say  to  you  be- 
fore the  Conference."  Thereupon  Mc- 
Kendree arose  to  his  feet  and  the  two  men 
stood  facing  each  other.  Asbury  continued: 
"This  is  a  new  thing;  I  never  did  business  in 
this  way,  and  why  is  this  new  thing  intro- 
duced?" To  which  McKendree  replied: 
"You  are  our  father,  we  are  your  sons;  you 
never  had  need  of  it.  I  am  only  a  brother 
and  I  have  need  of  it."  Asbury  said  no  more, 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  31 


but  with  a  smile  resumed  his  seat.  So  im- 
pressed was  Asbury  by  the  superior  manner 
in  which  McKendree  conducted  the  business 
that  he  seldom  thereafter  occupied  the  chair 
of  the  Conference.  As  a  presiding  officer 
McKendree  perhaps  has  never  been  sur- 
passed by  any  of  his  successors. 

Asbury's  peculiar  talent  was  in  his  abil- 
ity for  governing  the  preachers.  He  had  a 
genius  for  administration  second  only  to  that 
of  Wesley.  This  was  his  chief  distinction. 
He  knew  all  of  his  preachers,  and  without 
consulting  anyone  he  sent  them  where  they 
could  best  do  their  work.  In  Dr.  Buckley's 
opinion,  "No  general  ever  stationed  his 
troops  with  greater  skill  than  Asbury  dis- 
played in  the  adjustment  of  ministerial  sup- 
plies to  the  infant  societies."  He  not  only 
had  the  genius  to  lead,  but  he  had  the  will  to 
govern,  and  he  exercised  it.  In  matters 
ecclesiastical  Asbury,  as  well  as  Wesley,  be- 
lieved in  and  enforced  discipline.  He  admin- 
istered with  an  iron  hand  and  an  indomitable 
will  the  powers  with  which  the  church  had 
invested  him. 

Asbury  was  not  an  orator,  as  Bascom  was. 


32  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


Few  preachers  in  any  church  have  been. 
When  Bascom  spoke  no  edifice  could  hold 
half  of  the  multitude  who  flocked  to  hear  him. 
Many  a  time  Bascom  reached  his  pulpit  by 
being  passed  through  a  window  at  the  back 
of  it.  His  would-be  hearers  filled  the  win- 
dows and  blocked  the  doors  and  stood  far  out 
beyond  the  reach  of  his  voice.  Bascom's 
manner,  his  voice,  his  words,  charmed  and 
held  spellbound  his  vast  congregations  "as 
the  Ancient  Mariner  held  the  wedding 
guest."  Asbury  was,  however,  a  dignified 
and  impressive  preacher  and  always  terribly 
in  earnest.  Jesse  Lee  rated  him  an  "excel- 
lent" preacher.  Boehm,  who  heard  him  over 
fifteen  hundred  times,  thought  him  a  "supe- 
rior" preacher,  and  said  his  sermons  were 
scripturally  rich  and  that  he  brought  out  of 
his  treasury  things  old  and  new.  He  thought 
him  great  at  camp  meetings,  on  funeral  occa- 
sions, and  at  ordinations.  He  had  heard  him 
preach  fifty  ordination  sermons,  and  said 
that  they  were  among  the  most  impressive  he 
had  ever  heard.  President  Tipple,  in  his  de- 
lightful book,  says  that  there  were  occasions 
when,  under  the  rush  of  Asbury's  utterance, 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  33 


people  sprang  to  their  feet  as  if  summoned 
to  the  judgment  of  God. 

For  fifty-four  years  Asbury  was  a 
preacher.  Throughout  all  these  years  he 
took  advantage  of  every  opportunity  to 
preach  that  was  presented.  He  preached 
in  the  streets,  in  the  fields,  in  private  houses, 
in  courthouses,  "behind  the  barracks"  to 
the  soldiers,  "at  the  gallows  to  a  vast  mul- 
titude," from  "a  wagon  at  the  execution" 
of  criminals,  and  wherever  it  was  possible 
to  get  people  to  listen.  He  strove  inces- 
santly for  perfection.  He  constantly 
preached  upon  it.  "I  feel  it  my  duty  to 
speak  chiefly  of  perfection  and,  above  all, 
to  strive  to  attain  that  which  I  preach.  I  am 
divinely  impressed  to  preach  sanctification 
in  every  sermon."  At  times  he  struck  terror 
into  the  hearts  of  those  who  heard  him.  He 
wrote  referring  to  one  of  his  own  sermons: 
"It  was  an  awful  talk,  and  the  people  were 
alarmed;  let  them  look  to  it."  "It  is  our 
duty,  whether  they  will  hear  or  whether  they 
will  forbear,  to  declare  that  if  they  die  in 
their  sins  they  can  expect  nothing  but  hell 
and  damnation."    His  one  thought  was  to 


34  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


induce  trembling  penitents  to  lay  hold  on 
Jesus  as  their  Saviour,  that  through  his  aton- 
ing blood  they  might  be  saved.  It  may  be 
said  of  him,  as  it  was  of  Jesse  Lee,  that  his 
eloquence  was  the  simple  eloquence  of  truth 
"unadorned  with  any  other  flowers  than  such 
as  he  had  gathered  from  the  garden  of  the 
Lord,  the  Holy  Scriptures."  If  to-day  we 
felicitate  ourselves  that  "Sinai  no  longer 
belches  forth  flame  and  fury,"  we  must  re- 
member that  in  estimating  Asbury  he  must 
be  judged  by  the  standards  of  his  age.  If  he 
aroused  the  fears  of  his  hearers,  it  was  be- 
cause he  thought  there  was  no  other  way  of 
reaching  them.  And  if  he  aroused  fear,  did 
he  not  also  allay  it?  The  message  he  de- 
livered was  the  Great  Salvation. 

Salvation !    O  the  joyful  sound ! 

What  pleasure  to  our  ears! 
A  sovereign  balm  for  every  wound, 

A  cordial  for  our  fears. 

Lord  Rosebery,  speaking  of  the  weak- 
ness of  Robert  Burns  and  the  spot  on  the 
poet's  mantle,  said  that  we  all  have  some- 
thing to  be  grateful  for  in  the  weaknesses  of 
great  men.  Mankind  is  helped  in  its  prog- 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  35 


ress  almost  as  much  by  the  study  of  imper- 
fection as  by  the  contemplation  of  perfection. 
We  cannot  suppose  Asbury  was  entirely  free 
from  human  weaknesses.  That  he  was  free 
from  personal  ambition  must  be  conceded. 
That  he  was  autocratic  is  also  true.  That  he 
did  not  always  control  his  feelings  is  shown 
by  the  following  incident:  In  one  of  the  Con- 
ferences Jesse  Lee  spoke  in  advocacy  of  a 
certain  matter  and  saw  from  the  expression 
on  Asbury's  face  that  he  was  against  him. 
Thereupon  Lee,  addressing  the  bishop,  asked 
whether  he,  Lee,  had  common  sense.  As- 
bury answered,  "You  have  uncommon 
sense."  "Then,"  said  Lee,  "if  I  have  uncom- 
mon sense,  I  ought  to  have  an  uncommon 
hearing."  Whereupon  Asbury  is  said  to 
have  turned  his  back  and  to  have  written 
letters  until  Lee  finished  his  speech.  And 
Asbury  and  Coke  for  a  short  time  so  dis- 
agreed that  it  was  almost  necessary  that  they 
should  not  meet. 

In  our  day  there  are  some  ministers  whose 
purses  are  not  empty  of  gold  or  silver.  The 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  is  given  Lambeth 
Palace  and  a  salary  of  seventy-five  thousand 


36  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


dollars  a  year.  The  bishops  of  the  Church 
of  England  receive  fifty  thousand  dollars  a 
year.  In  our  country  the  same  munificence 
is  not  extended  to  the  bishops  of  any  of  the 
churches.  There  may  be  a  few  gifted  min- 
isters who  receive  eighteen  thousand  dollars 
a  year.  But  the  average  salary  of  a  preacher 
in  our  church  is  about  one  thousand  dollars  a 
year.  Our  people  too  often  forget  that  it 
was  said: 

"Do  ye  not  know  that  they  which  minister 
about  holy  things  live  of  the  things  of  the 
temple  ?  and  they  which  wait  at  the  altar  are 
partakers  with  the  altar?  Even  so  hath  the 
Lord  ordained  that  they  which  preach  the 
gospel  should  live  of  the  gospel." 

Martin  Luther  devised  what  he  called  "a 
good  book  for  the  laity."  It  contained  a 
series  of  wood  cuts  depicting  contrasts  be- 
tween Christ  and  the  pope.  One  was  Christ 
driving  the  money  changers  out  of  the 
temple,  and  the  pope  selling  indulgences  with 
piles  of  money  before  him.  In  America  in 
the  days  of  Francis  Asbury  a  Methodist 
preacher  never  had  but  a  few  dollars  in  his 
pocket. 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  37 


When  Christ  called  his  twelve  disciples 
and  gave  them  power  against  unclean  spirits 
and  sent  them  forth,  he  bade  them  to  pro- 
vide neither  gold  or  silver,  nor  scrip  for  their 
journey,  neither  two  coats,  neither  shoes,  nor 
yet  staves.  The  disciples  heard  and  obeyed, 
and  so  did  Paul.  So  did  Saint  Francis  of 
Assisi  when  he  made  that  pilgrimage  to 
Rome  and  flung  all  that  he  possessed  on  the 
altar  of  Saint  Peter's  and  joined  himself  to 
a  troop  of  beggars.  The  great  Franciscan 
order  which  Assisi  founded  obeyed.  So  did 
Wesley  and  Asbury.  And  so  have  other  men 
among  the  living  and  the  dead  to  whom  man- 
kind owe  reverence  and  honor.  It  is  well  for 
the  world  that  such  men  have  lived.  Theirs 
have  been  splendid  souls.  Their  only  am- 
bition has  been  to  serve.  Their  ideas  of  duty 
have  not  been  measured  by  a  gold  standard. 

Asbury's  salary,  even  after  he  became  a 
bishop,  was  sixty-four  dollars  a  year  and 
traveling  expenses.  It  was  later  increased 
to  eighty  dollars.  In  1804  he  notes  in  his 
Journal:  "The  superintendent  bishop  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  America  be- 
ing reduced  to  two  dollars,  was  obliged  to 


38 


FRANCIS  ASBURY 


make  his  wants  known."  In  1806  he  was  at- 
tending the  Western  Conference  and  there 
he  found  some  of  the  preachers  poorer  than 
himself.  And  he  writes :  "The  brethren  were 
in  want  and  could  not  suit  themselves,  so  I 
parted  with  my  watch  and  my  cloak  and  my 
shirt."  On  one  occasion  a  friend  of  Asbury's 
wanted  to  borrow  or  beg  fifty  dollars  from 
him.  Commenting  on  the  fact,  Asbury 
writes:  "He  might  as  well  have  asked  me  for 
Peru.  I  showed  him  all  the  money  I  had 
in  the  world — about  twelve  dollars — and 
gave  him  five.  Strange  that  neither  my 
friends  nor  my  enemies  will  believe  that  I 
neither  have  nor  seek  bags  of  money.  Well, 
they  shall  believe  by  demonstration  what  I 
have  ever  been  striving  to  prove,  that  I  will 
live  and  die  a  poor  man."  He  was  laying  up 
his  treasure  in  heaven. 

He  wore  his  clothes  threadbare  and  often 
they  were  shabby  in  appearance.  The  fact 
needs  no  apology.  They  were  as  good  as  his 
salary  allowed.  He  took  no  thought  for  his 
life,  what  he  should  eat  or  what  he  should 
drink;  nor  yet  for  his  body,  what  he  should 
put  on.   He  had  his  wish,  and  lived  and  died 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  39 


a  poor  man.  There  was  not  a  day  after  he 
came  to  America  when  he  could  not  truth- 
fully have  said, 

"No  foot  of  land  do  I  possess, 
No  cottage  in  this  wilderness, 
A  poor  wayfaring  man." 

In  one  of  his  immortal  tragedies  Sophocles 
exclaims  "Who  can  tell  whether  to  live  may 
not  be  to  die,  and  to  die  may  not  be  to  live  ?" 
In  contemplating  the  life  of  Francis  Asbury 
we  can  realize  that  the  thought  of  Sophocles 
is  true.  If  Asbury  had  been  content  to  re- 
main in  England,  had  led  the  life  of  a  selfish 
man  contented  with  conditions  as  he  found 
them,  we  should  not  to-day  commemorate 
his  death.  We  are  here  because  he  left  home, 
father,  mother,  friends,  and  native  land,  and 
here  in  America,  without  earthly  recompense, 
endured  for  more  than  forty-five  years  the 
privations  and  labors  which  wore  him  out  and 
broke  him  down.  His  whole  life  was  one  of 
utmost  self-sacrifice.  Trevelyan,  in  his 
American  Revolution,  says  of  Asbury  that 
he  was  a  man  who  did  not  seek  and  who  led 
a  life  which  was  above  worldly  praise.  No 


40  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


finer  tribute  could  be  paid  to  any  man  than 
that.  As  his  life  passes  in  review  before  us, 
we  realize  how  true  is  the  saying  of  Hugh 
Price  Hughes  that  uNot  self-assertion,  but 
limitless  self-suppression,  is  the  secret  of 
life."  The  greatest  characters  are  the  most 
unselfish.  All  sin  and  all  misery  in  the  ulti- 
mate analysis  have  their  root  in  selfishness. 

Asbury  never  married.  In  his  Journal  in 
1804,  when  he  was  fifty-nine  years  old,  he 
made  this  entry:  "If  I  should  die  in  celi- 
bacy, which  I  think  quite  probable,  I  give  the 
following  reasons  for  what  can  scarcely  be 
called  my  choice."  He  then  gave  an  account 
of  his  life  and  said:  "At  forty-nine  I  was 
ordained  superintendent  bishop  in  America. 
Among  the  duties  imposed  upon  me  by  my 
office  was  that  of  traveling  extensively,  and 
I  could  hardly  expect  to  find  a  woman  with 
grace  enough  to  enable  her  to  live  but  one 
week  out  of  the  fifty-two  with  her  husband. 
.  .  .  It  is  neither  just  nor  generous.  I 
may  add  to  this  that  I  had  little  money,  and 
with  this  little  administered  to  the  neces- 
sities of  a  beloved  mother  until  I  was  fifty- 
seven.  .    .    .  It  is  my  duty  now  to  bestow 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  41 


the  pittance  I  may  have  to  spare  upon  the 
widows  and  fatherless  girls  and  poor  married 
men." 

In  his  Journal  of  July  12,  1805,  Asbury 
wrote:  "Marriage  is  honorable  in  all,  but  to 
me  it  is  a  ceremony  awful  as  death.  Well 
may  it  be  so,  when  I  calculate  we  have  lost 
the  traveling  labors  of  two  hundred  of  the 
best  men  in  America,  or  the  world,  by  mar- 
riage and  consequent  location." 

The  early  itinerants  as  a  rule  did  not 
marry.  Those  who  did  usually  ceased 
preaching.  In  the  General  Conference  of 
1783  seventy  out  of  eighty  were  unmarried. 
When  one  married  he  usually  ceased  to  be  a 
traveling  preacher. 

In  those  days  the  wife  of  a  traveling 
preacher  was  paid  a  salary.  In  the  Min- 
utes of  the  General  Conference  of  1796, 
Question  21  reads:  "What  directions  shall  be 
given  concerning  the  salaries  of  the  wives  of 
traveling  preachers?"  The  answer  is:  "The 
wife  of  every  traveling  preacher  shall  have 
the  same  claim  to  a  yearly  salary  of  sixty- 
four  dollars  as  a  traveling  preacher." 

Asbury's  character  was  heroic.  Luther 


42  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


went  to  the  Diet  of  Worms  believing  that  he 
was  going  to  his  death.  Asbury  with  a  like 
courage  would  have  made  the  same  journey 
if  similarly  summoned.  If  the  necessity 
which  confronted  Luther  had  confronted 
Asbury,  it  cannot  be  doubted  what  his  answer 
would  have  been.  "I  cannot  and  will  not 
retract  anything,  for  to  act  against  con- 
science is  unsafe  and  unholy.  I  can  do 
nought  else.   Here  stand  I.   God  help  me." 

If  he  had  been  imprisoned  for  years  in  the 
dungeons  of  the  Inquisition,  as  Bruno  was, 
and  then  brought  forth  to  die,  we  have  no 
doubt  that  as  the  fire  was  kindled  about  him 
he  too  would  have  declined  to  recant  and 
would  have  died  an  equally  willing  martyr. 

In  his  Winning  of  the  West  Mr.  Roose- 
velt has  paid  an  appreciative  tribute  to  the 
early  circuit  riders  of  the  frontier  settle- 
ments. To  them,  he  says,  the  country  owes 
an  immense  debt;  that  "Wherever  there  was 
a  group  of  log  cabins  thither  some  Meth- 
odist circuit  rider  made  his  way,  or  there 
some  Baptist  preacher  took  up  his  abode." 
He  points  out  that  they  yielded  scores  of 
martyrs,  nameless  and  unknown  men  who 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  43 


perished  at  the  hands  of  the  savages,  or  by 
sickness  or  by  flood  or  storm.  They  had  to 
face  not  only  Indians  but  white  inhabitants 
who  sometimes  were  so  lawless  and  godless 
that  they  were  more  to  be  feared.  These 
"nameless"  and  "unknown"  men  deserve  to 
be  remembered  here  this  day.  Like  Asbury, 
they  are  worthy  of  our  honor  and  reverence 
for  their  heroism  and  self-sacrifice.  What 
they  planted  was  the  handful  of  corn  upon 
the  mountains  from  which  we  have  so  abun- 
dantly reaped.  But  the  greatest  of  the  cir- 
cuit riders  was  Francis  Asbury. 

Asbury  preached  about  sixteen  thousand 
five  hundred  sermons,  traveled  about  two 
hundred  and  seventy  thousand  miles,  most  of 
it  on  horseback,  some  of  it  on  foot,  presided 
in  no  less  than  two  hundred  and  twenty-four 
Annual  Conferences,  and  ordained  more 
than  four  thousand  preachers.  In  addition 
he  was  writing  a  thousand  letters  a  year.  He 
records  in  his  Journal:  "I  suppose  that  I 
must  write  nearly  a  thousand  in  a  year." 

No  man  of  his  age  traveled  as  much  or  as 
far  as  Asbury.  He  rode  from  fifteen  to  fifty 
miles  a  day,  averaging  six  thousand  miles  a 


44  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


year.  His  travels  took  him  from  the  At- 
lantic to  the  Mississippi  and  from  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  to  the  Saint  Lawrence.  He 
crossed  the  Alleghenies  sixty  times.  With 
the  spirit  of  his  Master  and  the  zeal  of  an 
apostle  he  swept  through  the  continent  with 
tireless  energy.  No  danger  intimidated  him. 
No  obstacle  diverted  him.  No  suffering 
overcame  him.  He  traversed  forests,  pene- 
trated the  wilderness,  climbed  mountains, 
and  followed  the  trail  of  savage  hunters  and 
the  track  of  the  wild  beasts.  He  slept  fre- 
quently on  the  ground,  and  sometimes  in  the 
rain,  and  sometimes  among  the  rocks  in  the 
mountains,  with  no  covering  but  the  sky,  and 
sometimes  on  the  floor  of  a  lonely  and  de- 
serted cabin. 

O,  far  from  home  thy  footsteps  stray; 

Christ  is  the  life,  and  Christ  the  way, 

And  Christ  the  light; 

The  rising  tempest  sweeps  the  sky; 
The  rains  descend,  the  winds  are  high; 
The  waters  swell,  and  death  and  fear 
Beset  thy  path,  nor  refuge  near. 

Like  Paul,  he  was  in  journeyings  often,  in 
perils  of  waters,  in  perils  of  robbers,  in  perils 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  45 


by  his  country  men,  in  perils  by  the  heathen, 
in  perils  in  the  city,  in  perils  in  the  wilder- 
ness, in  perils  among  false  brethren.  In 
weariness  and  painfulness,  in  watchings 
often,  in  hunger  and  thirst,  in  fastings  often, 
in  cold  and  nakedness. 

His  last  sermon  was  preached  at  Rich- 
mond when  he  was  so  weak  that  he  had  to  be 
carried  in  the  arms  of  his  friends  from  the 
carriage  to  the  church.  He  was  so  ill  that 
he  preached  sitting  on  a  table.  The  sermon 
was  nearly  an  hour  in  length,  and  the  large 
company  listened  with  tearful  eyes  and 
throbbing  hearts.  They  knew  it  was  the  end. 
They  carried  him  back  to  his  carriage  and 
took  him  to  the  house  of  an  old  friend  at 
Shenandoah,  twenty  miles  from  Fredericks- 
burg. And  there,  the  battle  fought,  the  vic- 
tory won,  this  old  prophet  and  priest  and 
servant  of  God  was  numbered  with  the  dead. 
The  messenger  of  the  Lord  came  to  him  on 
March  31,  1816. 

Tranquil  amid  alarms, 

It  found  him  on  the  field, 
A  veteran,  slumbering  on  his  arms, 

Beneath  his  red-cross  shield. 


46  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


His  sword  was  in  his  hand, 

Still  warm  with  recent  fight, 
Ready  that  moment,  at  command 

Through  rock  and  steel  to  smite. 

The  pains  of  death  are  past, 

Labor  and  sorrow  cease; 
And,  life's  long  warfare  closed  at  last, 

His  soul  is  found  in  peace. 

Soldier  of  Christ,  well  done! 

It  is  impossible  to  say  how  long  after  death 
the  names  of  men  will  remain  in  the  memory 
of  the  living.  In  the  confusion  wrought  by 
time  names  once  thought  immortal  sink  into 
oblivion.  They  are  as  a  wind  that  passeth 
away  and  which  cometh  not  again.  How- 
ever, I  cannot  but  believe  that  the  name  of 
Francis  Asbury,  what  he  achieved,  what  he 
endured,  what  he  sacrificed,  will  be  acclaimed 
in  the  coming  centuries  and  so  long  as  our 
Methodism  stands.  The  years  and  the 
events  of  the  century  which  has  passed  have 
not  obscured  him.  Do  we  not  this  day  see 
him?  Are  not  his  wan  and  furrowed  face 
and  his  venerable  form  still  visible? 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  47 


I  apply  to  him  with  slight  change  words 
once  spoken  with  less  justification  of  another, 
and  say,  that  as  he  who  looks  upon  the  heav- 
ens beholds  a  constellation  gleaming  in  the 
light  of  a  single  star,  so  he  who  recalls  the 
past  of  Methodism  in  America,  the  labors, 
sorrows,  self-sacrifice,  and  sometimes  the  al- 
most martyrdom  of  its  sons,  will  find  rising 
to  his  lips  the  honored  name  of  Francis  As- 
bury. 


THEN  AND  NOW 

Bishop  Joseph  F.  Beery 


FRANCIS  ASBURY— THE  BISHOP 
Bishop  Frank  M.  Bristol 

FRANCIS  ASBURY— ITINERANT 
Bishop  Frederick  D.  Leete 

Addresses  Delivered  before  the  General  Conference 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  at  Saratoga 
Springs,  New  York,  May,  1916,  on  the  Occasion 
of  the  Commemoration  of  the  Centennial  of  the 
Death  of  Bishop  Asbury. 


THEN  AND  NOW 


Personality  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the 
world.  History  is  but  the  biography  of  great 
men.  This  republic  was  builded  around 
forceful  personalities.  From  them  our  na- 
tional life  took  on  its  ideals  and  form.  The 
character  and  aspirations  of  Washington, 
Jefferson,  and  Lincoln,  with  others,  have 
been  indelibly  stamped  upon  our  institutions. 
This  is  equally  true  of  our  church,  whose  be- 
ginning was  contemporaneous  with  that  of 
the  republic.  American  Methodism  is  the 
incarnation  of  the  ideals  and  spirit  of  the 
Wesleys,  of  Asbury,  Lee,  Garrettson,  Mc- 
Kendree,  Dickins,  Cooper,  Bascome,  Mc- 
Clintock,  Simpson,  Galloway,  and  the  impe- 
rial Warren.  Being  dead  they  yet  speak. 

The  dominating  personality  of  American 
Methodism  during  its  formative  period  was 
Francis  Asbury.  His  influence  among  the 
pioneer  preachers  and  people  was  almost 
supreme.  His  spirituality,  heroism,  evangel- 
istic passion,  and  sacrificial  service  became 
their  chief  human  inspiration.   His  type  be- 

51 


52  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


came  the  type  of  the  infant  church.  That 
type  was  perpetuated  through  the  years,  and 
though  somewhat  modified  by  changed  con- 
ditions, is  with  us  yet.  Francis  Asbury  has 
been  dead  for  a  hundred  years,  but  he  is  liv- 
ing still. 

Asbury  lived  in  pioneer  days.  The  re- 
public was  just  struggling  into  life.  The 
sparse  population  occupied  a  narrow  fringe 
of  territory  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard. 
Beyond  this  fringe  was  a  vast  wilderness. 
Public  roads  were  mere  trails  through  virgin 
forests.  Rivers  were  unbridged.  Railroads 
were  unknown.  The  average  house  was  a 
cabin.  There  was  no  telegraph.  Most  of  the 
people  were  strangers  in  a  strange  land. 
Nearly  all  were  poor.  But  how  marvelous 
the  changes  which  a  hundred  years  have 
wrought ! 

The  boundaries  of  the  republic  have  been 
pushed  westward  to  the  sea  and  southward 
to  the  Rio  Grande.  All  sections  of  our  terri- 
tory have  been  tied  together  by  bands  of 
steel.  The  iron  horse  steams  everywhere. 
Our  territory  sustains  a  population  of  a  hun- 
dred millions  of  souls.  Wealth  has  increased. 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  53 


Our  bankers  are  now  the  bankers  of  the 
world.  Colleges  and  universities  dot  the 
land.  Great  institutions  of  beneficence  and 
other  concrete  expressions  of  the  highest 
forms  of  Christian  conscience  and  culture 
greet  you  at  every  turn. 

And  the  changes  in  the  status  of  Method- 
ism are  quite  as  amazing.  A  while  ago  I 
traveled  the  Sam's  Creek  circuit  in  Mary- 
land. I  visited  the  spot  where  Robert  Straw- 
bridge,  standing  under  the  great  oak, 
preached  the  gospel  to  eager  throngs.  I 
went  to  the  old  Evans  meetinghouse,  where, 
in  the  earliest  days,  the  settlers  gathered  for 
worship.  I  lingered  some  time  in  the 
prophet's  chamber  of  the  old  Warfield  home, 
where  Asbury  often  lodged  and  where  Mc- 
Kendree  wrote  large  portions  of  his  journal. 

Returning  to  Baltimore,  I  stood  for  a  time 
in  reverie  at  the  site  of  Lovely  Lane  chapel, 
where  assembled  the  Christmas  Conference. 
In  fancy  I  saw  the  historic  group.  There 
was  Coke,  sensitive,  cultured,  rhetorical. 
There  also  was  Asbury,  modest,  heroic,  and 
aflame  with  the  fever  of  the  evangelist. 
With  these  leaders  were  twenty-three  intrep- 


54  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


id  pioneers,  half  of  them  scarcely  more  than 
boys.  At  that  time  we  had  a  membership  of 
fourteen  thousand.  There  was  no  Book  Con- 
cern. There  was  no  Missionary  Society. 
The  leaders  had  scarcely  caught  a  vision  of 
the  coming  educational  victories  of  their 
church.  How  amazing  the  change!  That 
one  Conference  has  multiplied  into  two  hun- 
dred and  forty.  The  twenty-three  preachers 
have  expanded  into  an  itinerant  arm  forty- 
six  thousand  strong.  The  fourteen  thousand 
members  have  grown  to  eight  millions.  We 
have  an  equal  number  of  Sunday  school 
scholars.  We  have  a  million  of  members  in 
our  Epworth  Leagues.  Those  in  the  re- 
public who  may  be  classed  as  Methodist 
members  and  adherents  must  make  up  a 
company  of  twenty-five  millions  of  souls. 
Well  may  we  adapt  the  words  of  our  own 
matchless  singer  and  apply  them  to  the 
growth  of  the  Methodist  movement  on  this 
continent : 

When  at  first  the  work  began, 
Small  and  feeble  was  its  day; 

Now  the  word  doth  swiftly  run, 
Now  it  wins  its  widening  way; 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  55 


More  and  more  it  spreads  and  grows, 

Ever  mighty  to  prevail; 
Sin's  strongholds  it  now  o'erthrows, 

Shakes  the  trembling  gates  of  hell. 

There  are  other  contrasts:  Among  the 
unique  experiences  of  my  life  in  Philadelphia 
are  my  visits  to  the  old  cathedral  of  our 
Methodism,  Saint  George's  Church,  where 
Asbury  preached  his  first  sermon  after  land- 
ing in  the  New  World.  I  particularly  love 
to  linger  in  the  famous  "Conference  room," 
where  the  first  American  Methodist  Confer- 
ence was  held,  in  July,  1773,  with  an  attend- 
ance of  seven  preachers.  The  room  has  been 
preserved,  so  far  as  possible,  in  its  original 
state.  The  plates  and  mugs  used  to  pass  the 
bread  and  water  at  the  first  love  feast  are  still 
there.  And  certain  entries  in  a  well-pre- 
served account  book  suggest  a  marvelous 
change  in  the  attitude  of  Methodist  preachers 
concerning  liquor  and  its  use.  The  old  book 
actually  shows  that  no  very  modest  amount 
of  ale  and  stout  was  ordered  for  the  occasion. 
In  those  days  a  teetotaler  was  considered  a 
fanatic,  and  the  consumption  of  a  moderate 
amount  of  toddy  was  not  regarded  as  incom- 


56  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


patible  with  high  spiritual  attainment.  It  is 
not  so  now.  In  our  day  the  Annual  Con- 
ference has  become  the  chief  dynamo  of  the 
temperance  reform.  So  intense  is  the  convic- 
tion of  the  Methodist  preacher  concerning 
the  rum  abomination,  and  so  susceptible  is 
he  to  an  emotional  appeal,  that  the  dullest 
official  speech-maker,  failing  to  arouse  inter- 
est in  behalf  of  his  cause,  is  sure  to  turn  aside 
temporarily  to  the  temperance  question,  and 
seldom  fails  to  start  a  tempest  of  enthusiasm 
which  carries  him  triumphantly  across  the 
barren  spot  in  his  discourse,  and  makes  his 
effort  a  rhetorical  success.  If  we  have  forty- 
six  thousand  Methodist  preachers  to-day,  we 
have  forty-six  thousand  zealous,  uncom- 
promising enemies  of  the  liquor  curse.  And 
if  we  have  eight  millions  of  members,  we  fur- 
nish out  of  that  total  the  most  numerous, 
the  most  consistent,  the  most  intense,  the 
most  dreaded,  and  the  most  damaging  force 
in  all  the  republic  in  the  fierce  fight  to  out- 
law and  forever  annihilate  the  American 
saloon. 

There  are  still  other  contrasts.  Methodist 
churches  in  Bishop  Asbury's  time  were  ex- 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  57 


cessively  plain.  Interior  walls  were  merely 
whitewashed.  The  floors  were  uncarpeted. 
The  pulpit  was  high,  resting  on  a  single  pillar 
and  reached  by  a  flight  of  winding  stairs. 
The  Discipline  of  that  time  contained  the 
question,  "Is  there  any  exception  to  the  rule, 
'let  the  men  and  women  sit  apart'?"  An- 
swer: "There  is  no  exception.  Let  them  sit 
apart  in  all  the  churches."  Into  these  un- 
adorned churches  came  men  and  women  of 
utter  plainness  of  dress,  the  men  with 
straight  coats  and  white  cravats  without  knot 
in  front;  the  women  with  coal-scuttle  bon- 
nets without  flower  or  feather  or  ribbon. 
What  a  striking  contrast  to  the  congrega- 
tions which  now  assemble  in  our  elegant 
churches,  or  even  those  in  attendance  at  the 
General  Conference  at  Saratoga!  Yet, 
who  will  say  that  there  was  more  real  religion 
then  than  now? 

I  remember  that  Daniel  De  Motte  was 
once  arraigned  by  the  Indiana  Conference 
for  having  come  to  the  session  wearing  a 
beard.  It  was  said  that  Edward  R.  Ames 
lost  an  election  to  the  General  Conference 
because  he  wore  side  whiskers.    That  same 


58  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


Conference  passed  a  resolution  instructing 
all  the  preachers  to  wear  straight-breasted 
and  shad-bellied  coats,  and  trousers  with 
broad  falls. 

I  recall  the  horrified  exclamation  of  Mr. 
Asbury  when  he  visited  Newport,  Rhode 
Island,  and  first  saw  the  new  church  edifice. 
"A  steeple  and  a  bell,"  he  blurted  out,  "a 
steeple  and  a  bell ;  the  next  thing  will  be  an 
organ  and  a  choir;  then  farewell  to  Method- 
ism!" Well,  the  steeple  and  the  bell  were 
followed  by  the  organ  and  the  choir,  and  the 
church  really  survived  the  shock.  And  we 
shall  still  face  the  sunrise,  and  eagerly  grasp 
every  new  method  and  appliance  that  prom- 
ises to  make  the  dear  old  church  more  efficient 
amid  the  new  conditions  which  constantly 
confront  her. 

Rut  why  are  we  holding  commemorative 
exercises  to-day?  Why  have  we  turned  aside 
from  the  urgent  business  of  the  session  to 
spend  the  hour  thinking  of  our  illustrious 
father,  who  one  hundred  years  ago  went  up 
from  a  life  of  marvelous  toil  to  his  corona- 
tion? It  is  not  to  indulge  ourselves  in  ful- 
some eulogy.    It  is  not  because  we  hope  to 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  59 


add  luster  to  his  name,  but,  rather,  that,  in 
the  presence  of  this  representative  body  of 
world  Methodism,  we  may  emphasize  again 
the  spiritual  endowments  and  the  unique 
forms  of  service  which  made  his  life  so  great; 
and  also  to  remind  ourselves  that  if  Meth- 
odism is  to  win  large  victories  amid  the  com- 
plex conditions  of  modern  life,  she  must  res- 
olutely hold  to  certain  fundamentals  of  doc- 
trine and  life  which  the  fathers  believed  were 
vital.  I  mention  but  two  of  these  in  as  many 
brief  paragraphs. 

First,  I  remember  their  loyalty  to  the 
Word.  Faith  in  the  authority  and  integrity 
of  the  Book  was  absolute.  Doubt  seldom 
dimmed  their  vision  nor  dampened  their  zeal. 
This  explains  the  positive  note  in  their 
preaching,  and  accounts  for  the  fact  that  the 
pulpit  was  always  on  fire.  The  teaching  of 
the  Book  about  the  exceeding  sinfulness  of 
sin,  and  retribution  for  the  finally  impeni- 
tent, the  personal  deity  of  Jesus,  the  atone- 
ment, regeneration,  the  witness  of  the  Spirit, 
and  an  uttermost  salvation  through  the 
cleansing  of  the  blood — these  fundamentals 
were  accepted  without  question,  and  declared 


60  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


to  the  people  without  apology  or  modifica- 
tion. That  is  why  sinners  trembled  in  their 
congregations,  and  accounts  for  the  fact  that 
in  almost  every  meeting  held  on  Sunday  or 
on  week  day,  people  were  convicted  of  sin 
and  gloriously  saved  from  its  power.  We 
who  are  the  spiritual  sons  and  daughters  of 
Asbury  must  not  let  go  our  absolute  faith  in 
the  old  Book.  We  have  come  to  a  day  of 
questioning.  Men  are  deciphering  hiero- 
glyphics, and  studying  clay  tablets,  and  un- 
covering ruins,  and  exploring  tombs,  and 
sifting  dust  heaps,  and  are  going  with  their 
microscopes  over  every  chapter  and  verse  to 
see  if  they  cannot  find  a  flaw.  This  scholar- 
ship has  proclaimed  practical  evolution.  It 
has  sought  to  eliminate  the  supernatural,  and 
has  transferred  into  mere  myths  some  of  the 
tallest  personalities  of  the  Scriptures. 

Now,  I  am  quite  sure  that  our  church 
should  continue  to  be  hospitable  toward  a 
scholarship  that  is  reverent  and  construc- 
tive, and  which  comes  to  the  examination  of 
the  Book  with  uncovered  head  and  unsan- 
daled  feet — with  prayer  for  the  illumination 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  whose  function  it  is  to 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  61 


read  into  all  truths.  But  for  the  sake  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  and  the  kingdom 
of  evangelical  Christianity  which  we  so 
largely  represent,  we  should  be  most  inhos- 
pitable to  all  biblical  criticism  that  is  irrever- 
ent, ruthless,  and  destructive. 

Dear  brethren,  now  that  the  scare  occa- 
sioned by  irreverent  attacks  upon  the  Bible 
has  passed  away,  is  it  not  astonishing  how 
little  hurt  has  been  done !  The  dear  old  Book 
has  come  through  the  hot  fire  unharmed. 
Historically  it  has  stood  the  test.  Abraham 
still  stands  tall  before  the  ages.  Moses  is 
still  the  incomparable  lawgiver.  Isaiah  still 
looks  forward  with  rapturous  gaze  to  the 
manger  and  the  cross.  Daniel  still  stands  in 
his  lot  and  place.  Ruth  still  teaches  her 
golden  lessons  of  devotion  and  love.  And 
Jonah,  though  he  has  had  a  rather  stormy 
time  of  it,  has  not  yet  faded  into  allegorical 
mist.  And  the  doctrines  of  the  Book  are  just 
as  they  were.  The  story  of  the  fall,  the 
promise  of  redemption,  the  plan  of  salvation, 
the  virgin  birth,  the  miracles,  the  sacrificial 
death,  the  empty  tomb,  the  supernatural  as- 
cension, and  the  tongues  of  fire  are  all  there. 


62  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


Hammer  away,  ye  hostile  bands; 

Your  hammers  break,  God's  anvil  stands. 

Second.  It  will  sound  very  trite  to  you, 
but  I  must  say  it,  the  chief  business  of  Mr. 
Asbury  and  his  colaborers  was  that  of  evan- 
gelism. They  went  everywhere  delivering 
the  evangelistic  message,  and  telling  their  ex- 
perience. They  preached  for  souls.  They 
prayed  for  souls.  They  went  from  house  to 
house  seeking  souls.  Winning  men  back  to 
God,  their  ministry  was  a  success.  Falling 
short  in  that  sublime  mission,  they  were  hu- 
miliated by  a  sense  of  failure.  That  still  is 
the  chief  business  of  the  Methodists.  We  are 
doing  other  things  very  well.  We  are  build- 
ing great  churches.  We  are  endowing  col- 
leges. We  are  strengthening  our  missionary 
enterprises  at  home  and  abroad.  We  are 
establishing  hospitals,  and  orphanages,  and 
homes  for  the  aged.  We  are  developing 
great  new  forces  in  our  deaconess  movement, 
our  Epworth  Leagues,  and  the  marvelous 
Bible  class  organizations. 

But  if  we  do  the  normal  work  of  Method- 
ism, we  must  regard  all  these  agencies  as 
evangelistic  agencies.    The  Methodist  min- 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  63 


ister  has  been  the  chief  evangelist  of  the  cen- 
tury. He  must  maintain  that  preeminence. 
No  tent  nor  tabernacle  evangelism  must  be 
permitted  to  force  him  to  surrender  his 
leadership.  Any  form  of  evangelism  that 
discounts  the  pastor's  evangelistic  commis- 
sion and  responsibility  is  a  menace  to  our 
church.  We  must  guard  against  superficial- 
ity. It  will  be  no  advantage  to  us  to  crowd 
our  churches  with  unconverted  members. 
Sinners  must  still  be  called  to  repentance. 
They  must  still  cry  to  God  for  mercy.  They 
must  still  be  regenerated  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  must  still  have  the  definite  witness  in 
their  souls  that  they  are  born  of  God.  There 
will  not  be  uniformity  in  external  expression, 
of  course,  but  there  must  be  a  blessed  uni- 
formity in  the  reality  of  a  victorious  heart 
experience. 

The  Father  hears  him  pray, 

His  dear  Anointed  One; 
He  cannot  turn  away 

The  presence  of  His  Son; 
His  Spirit  answers  to  the  blood, 
And  tells  me  I  am  born  of  God. 

I  hear  the  tramp,  tramp,  tramp  of  the 


64 


FRANCIS  ASBURY 


Wesleyan  armies  of  the  world.  I  lift  my 
eyes,  and  behold  the  plains  and  the  valleys 
are  filled  with  swiftly  moving  columns,  their 
banners  waving  in  the  breeze.  They  come 
from  everywhere.  From  the  mountains  and 
valleys  of  the  sunset  coast.  From  the  fruit- 
ful prairies  of  the  Middle  West.  From  the 
denser  populations  of  the  East — scenes  of 
Asbury's  toils  and  conquests.  From  Mex- 
ico and  the  Latin  republics  to  the  south. 
From  under  blue  Canadian  skies.  From 
England  and  her  dependencies  around  the 
earth.  From  Xorway,  and  Sweden,  and 
Denmark,  and  Russia,  and  Germany,  and 
Switzerland,  and  Hungary,  and  Italy,  and 
France.  From  vast,  sable  Africa.  From 
mighty  India.  From  China,  and  Japan,  and 
Korea,  and  the  islands  of  the  seas. 

What  an  army !  What  an  army !  And  the 
long  lines  of  our  sacramental  hosts  seem 
ready  to  move  out  to  the  conquest  of  the 
world. 

In  the  name  of  Protestant  Christianity 
which  looks  to  us  still  for  aggressive  leader- 
ship; in  the  name  of  every  righteous  cause 
whose  destiny,  in  this  crucial  hour,  seems  to 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  65 


be  trembling  in  the  balance;  in  the  name  of 
youthful  millions  who  pass  through  an 
enemy's  country,  and  whose  ranks  must  be 
fearfully  decimated  by  the  subtle  warfare  of 
a  hellish  foe;  in  the  name  of  our  veterans, 
scarred  and  bleeding  from  wounds  received 
upon  a  hundred  battlefields ;  by  the  memory 
of  our  fallen  heroes;  yea,  by  the  memory  of 
the  whitened  face,  and  parched  lips,  and 
quivering  limbs,  and  breaking  heart,  and  dy- 
ing agonies  of  the  Son  of  God,  I  speak  unto 
you  soldiers  marshaled  under  the  banner  of 
the  Wesleys  and  of  Asbury — I  cry — "For- 
ward march!" 

Once  the  glorious  morn  has  broken,  who  shall  say 

What  the  unimagined  glories  of  the  day, 

What  the  evils  that  shall  perish  in  its  ray; 

Aid  the  dawning  tongue  and  pen, 

Aid  it  hosts  of  royal  men, 

Aid  it  paper,  aid  it  type, 

Aid  it  for  the  hour  is  ripe, 

And  our  earnest  must  not  slacken  into  play, 

Sons  of  Wesley,  eager,  earnest,  lead  the  way! 


FRANCIS  ASBURY— THE  BISHOP 

An  hundred  wonderful  years  have  passed 
since  Bishop  Asbury  closed  his  apostolic 
labors.  Through  that  stirring  century  of 
time  the  genius  and  spirit  of  the  greatest  itin- 
erant bishop  of  all  time  has  been  felt  with 
an  inspiring  power  in  the  mighty  evangel- 
istic movement  which  has  characterized  the 
religious  awakening  and  progress  of  the 
modern  world.  The  close  of  the  eighteenth 
and  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century  were 
characterized  by  the  appearance  of  four  tre- 
mendous history-making  forces — the  Declar- 
ation of  Independence,  the  steam  engine,  ap- 
plied electricity,  and  Methodism.  No  philos- 
ophy of  American  history  can  be  adequate 
that  fails  to  recognize  these  political,  eco- 
nomic, scientific,  and  spiritual  forces  as  the 
most  potent  factors  in  our  national  develop- 
ment. What  Washington  was  to  the  Revo- 
lution, what  Watt  or  Fulton  was  to  the  steam 
motor,  and  what  Franklin  was  to  the  appli- 
cation of  electricity  that  was  Francis  Asbury 
to  the  evangelistic  movement  which  has  cul- 
minated in  a  world-wide  Methodism. 

G6 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  67 


England's  most  valuable  contribution  to 
the  New  World  was  Francis  Asbury.  Nor 
do  we  forget  that  there  were  giants  in  those 
days — the  days  of  Washington,  Napoleon, 
and  Wellington,  the  days  of  Chatham,  Fox, 
and  Burke,  the  days  of  Wesley,  Fletcher, 
and  Coke,  the  days  of  the  signers  of  the  De- 
claration of  Independence  and  of  the  framers 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the 
days  of  the  heroes  of  Concord  and  Bunker 
Hill,  of  Saratoga  and  Yorktown,  of  Trafal- 
gar and  Waterloo.  And  yet  Francis  Asbury 
stood  among  the  great  of  that  great  time  to 
be  seen  by  all  the  future  as  second  to  none  in 
helping  to  shape  the  very  destiny  of  Chris- 
tendom. If  the  rise  and  development  of 
Methodism  in  England  and  America  have 
contributed  as  largely  to  the  progress  of 
Anglo-Saxon  civilization  as  the  most  author- 
itative historians  would  have  us  believe,  then 
Francis  Asbury  will  stand  beside  the  su- 
preme men  and  one  of  the  tallest  in  the 
temple  of  enduring  fame. 

It  is  sufficient  in  our  estimate  of  the  char- 
acter and  abilities  of  Asbury  to  be  assured 
that  John  Wesley,  that  astute  ecclesiastical 


68  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


statesman,  found  in  him  the  promise  of  the 
superb  and  consecrated  leadership  which  was 
to  blaze  a  way  through  the  frontiers  of  the 
world  for  the  triumphant  advance  of  Meth- 
odism and  of  every  form  of  evangelical  and 
evangelistic  Christianity.  At  the  age  of 
twenty-six  and  the  year  of  his  arrival  in  this 
country  he  was  appointed  by  Mr.  Wesley  as 
his  assistant  in  the  American  work.  This 
position  was  what  might  be  called  a  lay  epis- 
copacy. Mr.  Wesle}^,  himself,  exercised  all 
the  functions  of  a  bishop  and  was  that,  except 
in  name.  As  his  assistant,  and  after  Ran- 
kin's return  to  England  as  his  general  assist- 
ant, Asbury,  in  the  language  of  Bishop  Coke 
and  of  Asbury  himself,  "for  many  years  be- 
fore exercised  every  branch  of  the  episcopal 
office  excepting  that  of  ordination."  The 
question  was  asked  in  the  Conference  of 
1779:  "Ought  not  Brother  Asbury  to  act  as 
general  assistant  in  America?"  The  answer 
was,  "He  ought." 

In  a  sense,  therefore,  Asbury  was  the  first 
bishop  of  American  Methodism.  So  abun- 
dant were  his  labors  in  this  office  of  what 
may  be  called  assistant  bishop,  so  profound 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  09 

was  his  piety,  so  absolutely  self-sacrificing 
was  his  ministry  of  toil  and  suffering,  so  strict 
and  yet  eminently  just  were  his  discipline 
and  administration,  so  evangelistic  were  his 
methods  of  religious  propaganda,  and  so 
manifestly  superlative  was  his  genius  for 
leadership,  that  when  Mr.  Wesley  appointed 
him  joint  superintendent  with  Bishop  Coke 
over  our  brethren  in  North  America,  he  was 
with  Dr.  Coke  received  by  a  vote  of  the  First 
General  Conference,  and  that  unanimously. 

It  was  at  this,  the  famous  Christmas  Con- 
ference held  in  Lovely  Lane  Chapel,  Balti- 
more, in  1784,  that  the  strength  and  inde- 
pendence of  Asbury's  character  were  re- 
vealed. Surprised  as  he  was  at  the  intelli- 
gence that  came  to  him  and  the  American 
Methodists  in  the  letter  of  Mr.  Wesley  ap- 
pointing him  associate  bishop  or  general 
superintendent  with  Bishop  Coke,  he  re- 
fused to  accept  the  high  office  except  by  the 
unanimous  vote  of  the  preachers.  He  said 
to  Bishop  Coke,  "We  will  call  the  preachers 
together  and  the  voice  of  the  preachers  shall 
be  to  me  the  voice  of  God."  Moreover,  his 
further  answer  was,  "If  the  preachers  unani- 


70  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


mously  choose  me,  I  shall  not  act  in  the  ca- 
pacity I  have  hitherto  done  by  Mr.  Wesley's 
appointment.''  Clearly  understanding  his 
position,  strong,  independent,  thoroughly 
American  in  spirit,  as  it  was,  the  General 
Conference  on  Monday,  December  26,  by  a 
unanimous  vote  elected  him  superintendent, 
or  bishop,  of  the  newly  organized  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church.  Swiftly  was  Asbury  in- 
ducted into  the  orders  of  the  ministry,  and 
into  the  episcopacy.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  up  to  that  Christmas  Conference  As- 
bury had  not  been  an  ordained  minister. 
Through  all  those  previous  eighteen  or 
twenty  years  of  his  ministerial  activity,  he 
had  been  no  more  nor  less  than  a  lay 
preacher.  But  now  that  Coke  has  come  with 
the  authority  of  ordination  and  that  the 
preachers  have  agreed  to  form  themselves 
into  an  Episcopal  Church,  and  to  have  su- 
perintendents, elders,  and  deacons,  and  that 
the  General  Conference  has  elected  Asbury 
to  deacon's  and  elder's  orders,  he  is  ordained 
a  deacon  on  Saturday,  or  Christmas  day,  or- 
dained an  elder  on  Sunday,  and  elected  and 
consecrated  a  bishop  on  Monday. 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  71 


We  use  here  the  term  ''consecrated"  as 
conveying  at  the  present  time  the  true  mean- 
ing of  the  service  by  which  an  elder  elected 
to  the  episcopacy  is  inducted  into  that  office. 
The  fathers  often  used  the  terms  "set  apart," 
"consecrated"  and  "ordained"  as  synony- 
mous. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Asbury 
agreed  with  Wesley  and  Coke  and  with  the 
best  scholars  of  his  time  that  the  episcopacy 
is  an  office  and  not  an  order.  He,  therefore, 
cared  nothing  for  the  fiction  of  "apostolic 
succession,"  and  even  treated  in  a  witty,  if 
not  humorous,  vein,  the  charge  made  against 
him  of  possessing  tyrannical  powers  as  a 
Methodist  bishop. 

He  writes  in  his  diary:  "I  will  make  a  few 
observations  upon  the  ignorance  of  foolish 
men  who  will  rail  against  our  church  govern- 
ment. The  Methodists  acknowledge  no  su- 
periority but  what  is  founded  on  senior- 
ity, election,  and  long  and  faithful  service. 
For  myself,  I  pity  those  who  cannot  dis- 
tinguish between  a  pope  of  Rome  and  an 
old  worn  man  of  about  sixty  years  who 
has  the  power  given  him  of  riding  five  thou- 
sand miles  a  year  (on  horseback)  at  a  salary 


72  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


of  eighty  dollars  through  summer's  heat  and 
winter's  cold,  traveling  in  all  weather, 
preaching  in  all  places,  his  covering  from 
rain  often  but  a  blanket;  the  severest  sharp- 
ener of  his  wit,  hunger — from  fast  voluntary 
and  involuntary;  his  best  fare  for  six  months 
of  the  twelve  coarse  kindness ;  and  his  reward 
suspicion,  envy,  and  murmurings  all  the  year 
round." 

While  it  is  true  that  it  was  not  until  1787 
that  superintendents  were  first  called  bishops 
in  the  Discipline,  it  is  also  true  that  the  An- 
nual Minutes  for  1785  state  that  at  the  Gen- 
eral Conference,  which  met  the  year  before, 
the  preachers  say:  "We  formed  ourselves 
into  an  independent  church;  and  following 
the  counsel  of  John  Wesley,  who  recom- 
mended the  episcopal  mode  of  church  gov- 
ernment, we  thought  it  best  to  become  an 
Episcopal  Church,  making  the  episcopal 
office  elective,  and  the  elected  superintendent, 
or  bishop,  amenable  to  the  body  of  ministers 
and  preachers."  And  yet  to  show  the  democ- 
racy of  early  Methodism,  it  will  be  noted  that 
while  the  title  page  of  the  first  Discipline 
bears  the  names  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Coke, 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  73 


LL.D.,  and  the  Rev.  Francis  Asbury,  the 
title  page  of  the  Discipline  of  1798  bears  the 
simple  names,  Thomas  Coke  and  Francis 
Asbury.  In  the  first  episcopal  address  no 
use  is  made  of  the  term  "bishop,"  or  even 
"superintendent";  the  closing  words  of  the 
address  are  these:  "We  remain  your  very 
affectionate  brethren  and  pastors  who  la- 
bor day  and  night,  both  in  public  and  pri- 
vate, for  your  good.  Thomas  Coke,  Francis 
Asbury." 

More  frequently  in  those  early  Disciplines 
will  be  found  "Brother  Coke"  and  "Brother 
Asbury"  than  Bishop  Coke  and  Bishop  As- 
bury. But  who  in  all  the  splendid  history  of 
the  Christian  Church  ever  made  fuller  or 
more  satisfactory  proof  of  his  episcopal  min- 
istry than  Francis  Asbury?  Never  for  a 
single  moment  seeming  to  felicitate  himself 
upon  the  dignities  of  his  office,  he  went  forth 
the  flaming  itinerant,  the  evangelist-bishop, 
ambitious  for  nothing  but  the  salvation  of 
the  people.  "Let  me  suffer  and  let  me  labor, 
time  is  short  and  souls  are  daily  lost,"  he 
writes,  as  one  who  could  cry  with  the  apostle 
Paul:  "God  forbid  that  I  should  glory,  save 


74  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


in  the  cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by 
whom  the  world  is  crucified  unto  me,  and  I 
unto  the  world." 

Asbuiy  claimed  that  while  Mr.  Wesley 
governed  without  any  responsibility  what- 
ever, 4 'the  American  bishops  are  as  respons- 
ible as  any  of  the  preachers.  They  are  per- 
fectly subject  to  the  General  Conference. 
They  are  indeed  conscious  that  the  Confer- 
ence would  neither  degrade  nor  censure  them, 
unless  they  deserved  it."  Asbury's  view  of 
the  episcopal  office  has  been  accepted  and  is 
now  accepted  by  the  consensus  of  Methodist 
scholarship. 

Asbury  was  rarely  and  richly  endowed 
with  the  gifts  and  grace  which  fitted  him  for 
the  episcopal  office.  Though  without  aca- 
demic training,  he  was  a  life-long  student,  an 
omnivorous  reader,  mastering  a  vast  range 
of  the  learning  of  his  time,  in  history,  philos- 
ophy, theology,  letters  and  even  the  classical 
languages.  Though  not  a  man  of  vivid  im- 
agination, poetical  fancy,  or  transcendent 
gifts  of  eloquence,  it  may  be  said  of  him  with 
a  spiritual  meaning,  as  was  said  of  Welling- 
ton in  the  military,  that  he  was : 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  75 


Rich  in  saving  common  sense, 
Foremost  captain  of  his  time; 

And,  as  the  greatest  only  are 
In  his  simplicity  sublime. 

He  was  austere  and  yet  the  soul  of  kind- 
ness and  justice;  strict  disciplinarian  as  any 
general,  but  always  a  brother  in  the  gospel; 
cool-headed  as  a  Paul,  and  warm-hearted  as 
a  Saint  John;  fervent  as  a  Saint  Peter,  and 
practical  as  a  Saint  James;  an  ecclesiastical 
statesman  of  the  first  order  to  be  compared 
with  a  Richelieu,  but  a  gospel  evangelist,  if 
not  of  as  eloquent  a  speech,  surely  of  as  self- 
sacrificing  a  devotion  and  consecration  as  a 
Saint  Francis,  a  Bernard,  or  a  Savonarola. 
And  to  all  these  gifts  and  attainments  add 
that  genius  for  constructive  leadership  in 
which  even  a  Wesley  scarcely  excelled  him, 
and  in  which  we  find  the  initiating  philosophy 
of  the  triumphs  of  a  century  of  evangelism, 
and  you  have  the  combination  in  character 
and  personality  of  the  greatest  man  in  the 
history  of  American  Methodism. 

For  thirty-two  years  Bishop  Asbury  led 
the  ever-growing,  multiplying  Methodist 
hosts  which  he  saw  increase  in  number  from 


/ 


76  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


fifteen  thousand  to  two  hundred  and  fifteen 
thousand;  while  its  ministry  increased  from 
eighty-three  to  six  hundred  and  ninety-five; 
nay,  for  one  hundred  years  has  that  great 
itinerant  evangelist  statesman  bishop  led  us 
on  until  from  the  heights  of  glory  he  may 
behold  with  joy  that  greatness,  power,  and 
universality  of  Methodism  of  which  he  could 
not  have  had  the  vision  or  the  dream.  The 
spirit  of  Asbury  is  with  us  yet. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  suggestion 
of  Mr.  Wesley  as  to  the  new  organization, 
it  was  Bishop  Asbury's  ecclesiastical  states- 
manship that  laid  deep  and  broad  the  founda- 
tion of  Episcopal  Methodism.  We  do  not 
detract  from  the  glory  of  a  Coke,  a  Lee,  a 
Garrettson,  a  Dickins,  a  Cooper,  an  Abbott, 
or  a  McKendree,  when  we  believe  that  with- 
out the  constructive,  organizing  and  admin- 
istrative genius  of  Asbury,  Methodism  never 
could  have  become  the  mighty  force  for 
world-evangelism  which  it  has  come  to  be. 
Bishop  Asbury  shaped  the  essential  policy 
of  American  Methodism  for  all  time.  His 
wisdom  contributed  more  sane,  unchanging, 
abiding,  fundamental  law  to  our  Methodist 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  77 


Episcopal  Discipline  than  did  the  wisdom  of 
any  other  one  man.  The  entire  change  of 
form  of  the  Discipline  of  1787  was  prin- 
cipally the  work  of  Asbury. 

In  the  explanatory  notes  appended  to  the 
Discipline  of  1796,  Asbury  with  Coke  gave  a 
most  exhaustive  and  able  exposition  of  the 
rules  and  law  of  the  church;  an  exposition 
which  the  church  has  accepted  as  author- 
itative down  to  the  present  time.  The  au- 
thority given  to  Asbury  and  Coke  by  the 
General  Conference  of  1796  by  requesting 
them  to  prepare  this  interpretation  of  the 
Discipline  did  not  continue  and  would  not  be 
granted  the  bishops  of  to-day  by  the  Gen- 
eral Conference. 

The  first  elders  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  were  elected  by  the  General 
Conference,  and  the  office  of  an  elder  was 
"To  administer  the  sacraments  of  baptism 
and  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  to  perform  all 
the  other  rites  prescribed  by  our  Liturgy." 
On  the  advice  of  Mr.  Wesley,  the  General 
Conference  elected  twelve  elders  for  the 
above  purpose.  Bishop  Asbury,  taking  the 
suggestion  of  Mr.  Wesley,  thought  out  the 


78  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


larger  plan  of  the  presiding  eldership  which 
has  developed  into  the  district  superintend- 
ence7; this  office,  which  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury has  been  a  most  useful,  if  not  an  abso- 
lutely essential  part  of  our  polity,  originated 
in  the  ecclesiastical  acumen  of  Bishop  As- 
bury. 

While  the  rule  requiring  the  preacher  "to 
form  Sunday  schools"  did  not  appear  in  the 
Discipline  until  after  the  death  of  Asbury, 
nor,  indeed,  until  as  late  as  1828,  it  will  be 
found  that  the  rules  respecting  the  instruc- 
tion of  children  were  amplified  and  empha- 
sized by  Asbury,  and  in  the  notes  prepared 
for  the  Discipline  of  1796  the  bishops  called 
special  attention  to  those  rules,  using  the 
language  which  seems  to  express  the  ad- 
vanced thought  of  our  own  age:  "The  proper 
education  of  children  is  of  exceeding  great 
moment  to  the  welfare  of  mankind.  .  .  . 
The  welfare  of  the  states  and  countries  in 
which  they  live,  and  what  is  infinitely  more, 
the  salvation  of  their  souls,  do,  under  the 
grace  and  providence  of  God,  depend  in  a 
considerable  degree  upon  their  education. 
.  .  .  Let  us  follow  this  section  [of  the  Dis- 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  79 


cipline],  and  we  shall  meet  many  on  the  Day 
of  Judgment  who  will  acknowledge  before 
the  Great  Judge,  and  an  assembled  universe, 
that  their  first  desires  after  Christ  and  salva- 
tion were  received  in  their  younger  years  by 
our  instrumentality."  With  impassioned 
eloquence  they  pleaded  for  the  establish- 
ment of  Sabbath  schools  among  the  poor,  as 
well  as  among  the  competent.  Out  of  that 
prayer  of  Asbury  and  Coke  came  at  last,  if 
all  too  slowly,  the  Sunday  school  movement 
which  is  the  crowning  glory  of  present-day 
Methodism. 

The  possibility  of  the  splendid  educational 
equipment  of  the  church  of  our  time  may 
never  have  dawned  upon  the  imagination 
of  Asbury;  indeed,  it  has  been  questioned 
whether  the  bishop  was  as  alive  to  the  educa- 
tional as  to  the  evangelistic  needs  and  oppor- 
tunities of  the  New  World.  After  the  burn- 
ing of  Cokesbury  College,  which  he  had  done 
so  much  to  found,  he  said:  "The  Lord  called 
not  Whitefield  and  the  Methodists  to  build 
colleges.  I  wish  only  for  schools.  Dr.  Coke 
wanted  colleges."  Nevertheless,  Bishop  As- 
bury had  more  to  do  with  the  laying  of  the 


80  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


foundation  of  our  educational  system  than 
Bishop  Coke. 

In  that  first  Episcopal  Address  of  1789, 
in  speaking  of  the  Discipline,  the  bishops 
say,  "We  wish  to  see  this  little  publication  in 
the  house  of  every  Methodist,  and  the  more 
so  as  it  contains  our  plan  of  collegiate  and 
Christian  education."  May  we  not  say  that 
by  Asbury's  insistence  upon  the  dissemina- 
tion of  Christian  literature  and  his  part  in  the 
establishment  of  the  Book  Concern,  with  his 
earnest  activity  in  organizing  district  schools 
and  others  of  what  may  be  called  secondary, 
or  even  primary  education,  he  planted  the 
seed  from  which  has  sprung  the  golden  har- 
vest of  our  splendid  seminaries,  colleges,  and 
universities?  If  there  have  come  times,  such 
as  followed  the  burning  of  Cokesbury  Col- 
lege, when  the  cause  of  higher  education  has 
seemed  to  decline  among  us,  it  has  never 
wholly  expired,  and  by  all  the  tokens  of 
the  educational  revival  of  the  church  to-day, 
it  can  never  again  even  decline,  but  must 
grow  on  in  universal  influence  and  power 
forever. 

Not  only  by  his  influence  in  founding  the 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  81 


publishing  interests  of  our  church  did  As- 
bury  inaugurate  a  definite  plan  and  system 
for  the  relief  of  the  necessitous  cases  in  our 
ministry,  but  by  his  sympathetic  and  con- 
stant advocacy  of  the  claims  of  the  Preach- 
ers' Fund  he  planted  the  germs  which  at  the 
close  of  a  century  are  developing  into  the  full 
flower  of  the  most  generous  provision  for  our 
retired  ministers  that  has  ever  honored  the 
Church  of  God.  In  an  unpublished  letter  he 
writes  to  a  presiding  elder,  expressing  the 
hope  that  "the  collection  for  the  Preachers' 
Fund  will  be  noble,  not  less  than  the  interest 
of  eight  or  ten  thousand  dollars."  "If  the 
money  is  not  wanted  in  the  Maryland  Con- 
ference," he  writes,  "our  poor  Brethren  upon 
the  lakes  or  away  among  the  rocks  of  New 
England  will  dispense  with  it."  And  so  his 
great  heart  took  in  the  land  from  Georgia  to 
Maine,  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  beyond  the 
Alleghenies,  and  the  trials,  deprivations,  and 
hardships  of  the  preachers  were  his  own. 
Bishop  Asbury  took  a  great  interest  in  the 
evangelizing  of  the  Indians,  and  though  his 
hopes  with  regard  to  their  Christian  conver- 
sion were  never  fully  realized,  we  have  in  a 


82  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


letter  written  by  Bishop  Coke  an  intima- 
tion of  the  character  of  this  work.  He 
writes :  "It  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  find  by 
the  last  letter  of  my  very  dear  friend,  Bishop 
Asbury,  that  we  are  likely  to  have  a  work 
among  the  poor  Indians,  those  sons  of  Shem, 
as  our  dear  old  father  in  the  gospel  calls 
them."  It  may  be  doubted  whether  Meth- 
odism has  fully  carried  out  the  great  plan 
which  Bishop  Asbury  had  hoped  to  have  per- 
fected with  regard  to  our  mission  to  the  In- 
dians. 

Our  country  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  to 
Bishop  Asbury  which  no  monument  of 
marble  or  of  bronze  can  ever  fully  acknowl- 
edge even  in  our  national  capital.  No 
preacher,  no  statesman,  no  man  of  all  our 
country's  history  ever  did  so  much  to  inau- 
gurate the  movement  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  as  this  humane  bishop.  When  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  were  divided 
on  the  subject  and  dared  not  make  a  Con- 
stitution in  which  the  doctrine  of  equality, 
freedom,  and  the  inalienable  rights  of 
all  men  as  set  forth  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  would  be  declared  as  funda- 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  83 


mental  law;  when  Jefferson  and  Wash- 
ington, though  they  abhorred  slavery,  did 
not  deem  it  good  politics  to  take  a  firm 
stand  for  its  legal  abolition,  Bishop  As- 
bury  ceased  not  to  plead  for  the  freedom  of 
the  enslaved,  and  was  as  responsible  as  any  or 
as  all  others,  for  arraying  Methodism  and 
the  Methodist  Discipline  against  the  evil 
which  threatened  to  disrupt  the  church  and 
the  nation  at  their  very  origin.  There  were 
slumbering  in  the  church  and  the  nation  the 
volcanic  fires  which  in  time  were  to  shake 
the  social,  economic,  political  and  religious 
foundation  of  America. 

The  original  peace  and  harmony  of  our 
early  Methodism  is  a  fiction ;  it  never  existed ; 
and  the  division  of  the  church  in  1844  and 
1845  proved  it.  So  the  perfect  and  harmoni- 
ous union  of  the  States  never  existed  in  those 
days  following  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu- 
tion; and  the  Civil  War  proved  it.  But  as 
to-day,  with  all  our  sectional  political  animos- 
ities buried  in  the  graves  of  the  blue  and  the 
gray,  we  have  the  most  perfect  national 
union  the  States  have  ever  known,  so  very 
soon,  please  God,  with  all  our  ecclesiastical 


84  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


animosities  buried,  with  even  the  sad,  harsh 
memories  thereof,  in  the  graves  of  our  noble 
dead,  both  North  and  South,  Methodism  will 
experience  such  a  union  and  solidarity,  such 
a  power  and  spiritual  potency,  and  present 
such  an  imposing,  all-commanding,  all-con- 
quering front  to  the  powers  of  sin  and  wrong 
as  she  has  never  anticipated  save  in  the 
dreams  of  her  prophets  and  the  visions  of 
her  seers.  As  the  name  of  Washington  will 
ever  draw  the  citizens  of  our  country  into  a 
happier  and  holier  political  brotherhood,  so 
the  name  of  Asbury  will  be  the  name  to  unite, 
and  unite  forever,  all  the  forms  of  our  glo- 
rious Methodism. 

Again,  Bishop  Asbury  was  one  of  the 
mighty  men  whose  life-long  championship  of 
temperance  helped  to  initiate  that  irresistible 
movement,  which  for  a  century  has  been 
gathering  force  and  momentum  and  is  now 
rushing  to  the  high  tide  of  nation-wide  pro- 
hibition. Bishop  Asbury,  perhaps  more 
than  any  other  one  man,  committed  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  to  temperance, 
total  abstinence,  and  eternal  enmity  to  the 
liquor  traffic.    Not  only  was  Asbury  cham- 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  85 


pioning  the  cause  of  God,  of  the  church,  and 
of  humanity  in  his  advocacy  of  temperance, 
but  his  very  loyalty  to  our  country,  his  high- 
minded  patriotism  urged  him  to  leadership 
in  the  crusade  against  strong  drink.  The 
century-long  battle  which  he  did  so  much  to 
inaugurate  is  coming  to  the  universal  victory. 

Nor  did  this  gospel  preacher  and  Method- 
ist bishop  hesitate  to  interest  himself  in  the 
political  welfare  of  our  country.  When  all 
the  other  preachers  who  had  come  over  from 
England  cut  for  home  on  the  eve  of  the  Revo- 
lution, Francis  Asbury  stayed  by  the  stuff. 
He  believed  in  the  cause  of  our  Revolution- 
ary Fathers;  he  prophesied  that  their  just 
and  righteous  cause  would  win ;  he  could  not, 
he  would  not  forsake  the  little  Methodist 
flock  in  their  time  of  need  and  danger.  He 
had  left  his  native  land  for  the  New  World 
and  for  the  glory  of  Jesus  Christ.  With  the 
new  land  he  had  cast  his  lot.  On  one  occa- 
sion he  wrote:  "My  dear  mother  is  going 
swiftly,  if  not  gone,  after  praying  fifty-five 
years  for  me.  I  have  often  thought  very  seri- 
ously of  my  leaving  my  mother  as  one  of  the 
most  doubtful  sacrifices  I  have  made."  And 


86  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


yet  at  any  and  all  sacrifice  he  identified  him- 
self with  the  American  Methodists  and  the 
American  Revolution. 

By  that  he  saved  Methodism  to  the  new 
nation ;  saved  it  when  the  attitude  of  Wesley 
threatened  to  destroy  it  as  an  evangelizing 
power  in  America.  It  was,  therefore,  the 
right  of  such  a  man,  such  a  patriot,  and  such 
a  saint  to  seek  an  audience  with  the  most 
august  personage  of  the  country  and  of  the 
age.  At  the  suggestion  of  Bishop  Asbury 
the  Conference  voted  to  present  a  congratu- 
latory address  to  Washington  on  his  inau- 
guration as  President  of  the  United  States. 
Asbury  and  Coke  were  appointed  to  form- 
ulate and  present  the  address. 

Hence,  Asbury  notes  in  his  diary,  "We 
waited  on  General  Washington,  who  received 
us  very  politely,  and  gave  us  his  opinion 
against  slavery."  Though  Bishop  Coke  ac- 
companied him  in  his  visit  to  President 
Washington,  Bishop  Asbury  presented  the 
address  in  which  he  made  a  plea  for  freedom 
and  for  the  President's  influence  in  the  extir- 
pation of  slavery.  Evidently,  the  great 
frontier  bishop  was  profoundly  impressed  by 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  87 


the  manner  and  sentiments  of  Washington. 
He  became  a  most  devoted  admirer  of  the 
Father  of  his  Country,  and  wrote:  "The 
longer  I  live,  and  the  more  I  investigate,  the 
more  I  applaud  the  uniform  conduct  of 
President  Washington  in  all  the  important 
stations  which  he  has  filled."  The  good 
bishop  received  with  profound  sorrow  the 
intelligence  of  the  death  of  Washington.  It 
so  unnerved  him  that  he  ceased  from  all  work 
and  gave  himself  to  sorrowful  meditation  and 
to  prayer.  He  wrote  in  those  gloomy  days  of 
universal  mourning:  "I  am  disposed  to  lose 
sight  of  all  but  Washington.  Matchless 
man!"  Asbury  greatly  rejoiced  on  hearing 
that  in  his  will  the  great  Virginian,  the  great 
patriot,  the  great  Washington,  manumitted 
his  slaves. 

It  is  no  matter  for  wonder  that  a  bishop  so 
devoted  to  Washington  and  to  the  Revolu- 
tionary cause  should  have  won  the  esteem 
and  love  of  thousands  of  patriots,  and  been 
able  to  set  in  motion  the  influences  which 
gained  a  better  understanding,  and  even 
awakened  the  popularity  of  the  people  called 
Methodists. 


88  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


Well  known  is  the  story  of  the  travelings, 
sufferings,  and  unparalleled  activities  of 
Bishop  Asbury.  To  quote  from  Dr.  Mains : 
"It  has  been  estimated  that  in  his  American 
ministry  he  preached  about  sixteen  thousand 
five  hundred  sermons,  and  traveled  about  two 
hundred  and  seventy  thousand  miles,  six 
thousand  miles  a  year ;  that  he  presided  in  no 
less  than  two  hundred  and  twenty-four  An- 
nual Conferences,  and  ordained  more  than 
four  thousand  preachers."  Bachelor  as  he 
was,  he  had  no  home  where  the  devoted  wife 
and  loving  children  greeted  him  on  his  return 
from  long  and  fatiguing  journeys.  He  was 
the  pilgrim  bishop  without  a  home  save  in  the 
hearts  of  the  thousands  he  had  led  to  God. 
In  such  financial  straits  did  he  often  find  him- 
self, that  on  one  occasion  he  wrote:  "I  have 
served  the  church  upward  of  twenty-five 
years  in  Europe  and  America.  All  the  prop- 
erty I  have  gained  is  two  old  horses,  the  con- 
stant companions  of  my  toil,  six  if  not  seven 
thousand  miles  every  year."  But  he  could 
treat  his  poverty  with  a  jest,  as  when  he 
wrote,  "The  superintendent  bishop  of  the 
Methodist  Church  in  America  being  reduced 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  89 


to  two  dollars,  he  was  obliged  to  make  his 
wants  known." 

Bishop  Asbury  did  not  escape  calumny, 
but  he  ever  treated  his  detractors  with  a  dig- 
nity and  patience  becoming  a  Christian 
gentleman  and  a  bishop  of  the  Church  of 
God.  He  bore  all  buffetings,  false  accusa- 
tions and  persecutions  with  the  stout  heart 
of  a  great  man. 

As  some  tall  cliff  that  lifts  its  awful  form, 
Swells  from  the  vale  and  midway  leaves  the  storm, 
Though  round  its  breast  the  rolling  clouds  are  spread 
Eternal  sunshine  settles  on  its  head. 

March  31,  1816,  at  the  age  of  seventy-one, 
the  homeless  pilgrim,  the  frontier  itinerant, 
the  weary  toiler,  the  exhaustless  giant,  sinks 
at  last  to  rest.  Before  him  has  gone  the  great 
missionary  bishop,  his  beloved  companion, 
Coke;  Whatcoat,  too,  the  spiritual,  saintly 
bishop,  has  preceded  him  to  the  skies.  Upon 
McKendree,  the  eloquent,  fiery,  glorious  Mc- 
Kendree,  falls  the  old  prophet's  mantle  and 
Bishop  Asbury  passes  into  glory  and  into 
history. 


FRANCIS  ASBURY— ITINERANT 

On  a  late  October  day  in  the  year  1771, 
while  the  ship  on  which  he  had  taken  pas- 
sage bore  him  steadily  westward,  a  youth- 
ful voyager,  in  quest  of  holy  adventure  in  a 
far-off  land,  put  his  own  spirit  to  the  test  of 
his  inmost  purpose.  "Whither  am  I  going?" 
he  exclaimed.  "To  the  New  World." 
"What  to  do?"  "To  gain  honor?"  "No, 
if  I  know  my  own  heart."  "To  get  money?" 
"No,"  was  the  firm  reply.  "I  am  going  to 
live  to  God,  and  bring  others  so  to  do." 

Not  more  conscious  and  definite  was  the 
choice  by  which  Pizarro  became  conqueror  of 
Peru.  By  like  decision  and  dedication  the 
monk  of  Erfurt  freed  Christianity  from  me- 
diaeval bondage.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  by  his  early  determination,  and  not 
merely  in  his  later  labors  and  achievements, 
Francis  Asbury,  itinerant  Methodist,  became 
one  of  the  chief  factors  in  forming  the  moral 
character  of  America. 

The  year  of  the  birth  of  this  pioneer  of  the 
cross,  hero  of  the  wilderness,  molder  of  civic 
manners,  and  Christian  statesman,  1745,  was 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  91 


during  the  earlier  days  of  the  evangelical  re- 
vival in.  England.  More  than  a  decade  yet 
remained  before  the  period  of  riots  and  of 
violence  which  blazed  the  pathway  of  Wesley 
and  his  followers  would  be  concluded.  It 
was  the  age  of  Swift  and  Smollett,  of  Hume 
and  Bolingbroke.  On  the  continent  Rous- 
seau and  Voltaire  were  poison  in  the  veins  of 
the  social  bpdy.  Church  and  state  were  alike 
preyed  upon  by  the  irreverent  and  the  mer- 
cenary. It  was  also  the  year  of  the  attempt 
of  Charles  Stuart  to  regain  for  his  family  the 
British  throne. 

In  August,  the  month  of  Asbury's  birth, 
after  the  Conference  session  at  Bristol,  John 
Wesley  went  to  Newcastle,  then  in  peril 
from  the  north,  and  there  remained  to  com- 
fort the  Methodist  flock,  whose  house  of  wor- 
ship, being  without  the  city  walls,  was  be- 
lieved to  be  in  danger  of  destruction,  a  fate 
which  happily  did  not  arrive.  Like  his  Lord, 
Francis  Asbury  was  the  son  of  a  humble 
man  named  Joseph,  not  a  carpenter,  but  a 
farmer  and  gardener.  His  mother,  Eliza- 
beth, a  book-loving,  fair-minded,  and  devout 
woman,  when  her  son,  a  lad  of  tender  years, 


92  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


asked  her  about  the  Methodists,  gave  him  a 
good  account  of  them.  He  sought  their  serv- 
ices, and  became  deeply  impressed.  At  the 
age  of  thirteen  he  was  converted.  The  best 
converts  are  the  children. 

At  sixteen  the  boy  Francis  became  a  local 
preacher,  exercising  his  gifts  first  in  his  own 
father's  house.  At  the  Conference  of  1767, 
held  in  the  month  of  his  twenty-second  birth- 
day, he  was  received  by  the  leader  of  his 
church  into  the  itinerant  ministry.  After 
four  years  of  service  in  the  homeland,  at  the 
Conference  of  1771  the  warm  heart  of  the 
youth  was  stirred  by  the  appeal  of  Mr.  Wes- 
ley. "Our  brethren  in  America  call  aloud 
for  help.  Who  are  willing  to  go  over  and 
help  them?"  Five  felt  called:  two,  Asbury 
and  Richard  Wright,  were  chosen.  Asbury 
returned  home,  and  bade  farewell  to  his  par- 
ents, who  were  deeply  attached  to  their  only 
child,  from  whom  later  they  received  affec- 
tionate letters  and  from  his  slender  resources 
generous  sums  for  their  support  in  advancing 
years. 

With  especial  sadness  he  parted  from  a 
dearly  loved  mother,  upon  whom,  in  this  life. 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  93 


his  eyes  were  never  again  to  look.  Friendly 
Methodists  of  Bristol  fitted  him  out  with  ten 
pounds  in  money  and  a  suit  of  clothes,  mak- 
ing thereby  one  of  the  best  possible  invest- 
ments, and  becoming  partners  of  God  in  a 
mighty  business.  The  fellow  missionaries  set 
sail  from  the  old  port  of  Pill,  a  tempting 
name  to  one  describing  a  departure.  As  yet 
Francis  Asbury  had  given  so  little  sign  of 
coming  greatness  that  Mr.  Green  has  said, 
"No  one  could  foresee  that  one  of  these  two, 
a  young  man  of  six  and  twenty  summers,  tall 
in  person,  grave  in  demeanor,  was  destined 
to  become  an  apostle  whose  labors  would 
equal  those  of  any  servant  of  the  cross  whose 
name  is  inscribed  on  the  rolls  of  the  church, 
since  the  apostolic  age."  No  one  foresee  all 
this  ?  Not  man,  perchance ! 

But  is  there  not  One  who  from  the  begin- 
ning marks  with  unerring  accuracy  the  man 
of  his  knowledge  and  of  his  choice,  and  who 
brings  to  noble  issues  the  lives  of  those  who 
are  obedient  to  his  will?  We  believe  in  the 
foreknowledge  of  God,  in  the  election  of 
those  whom  the  Almighty  would  make  the 
instruments  of  his  plans,  and  in  the  master 


94  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


workmanship  by  which  they  are  shaped  and 
fitted  to  their  tasks  who  are  willing  to  be  used 
by  him. 

A  stormy  passage  to  America;  throes 
upon  the  sea  were  not  a  bad  preparation  for 
trials  and  upheavals  upon  the  land!  Fifty 
nights  of  sleeping  between  two  blankets  on 
the  hard  deck  must  have  reminded  Asbury 
of  Wesley's  wellknown  remark  to  John 
Nelson  after  three  weeks  lodging  on  the  floor 
during  one  of  their  preaching  trips :  "Brother 
Nelson,  let  us  be  of  good  cheer;  I  have  one 
whole  side  yet,  for  the  skin  is  off  but  one 
side." 

Fifty  days  of  reading,  meditation,  prayer- 
fulness,  and  of  faithful  preaching  to  sailors 
and  to  shipmates!  Would  that  Methodism 
might  return  to  the  habit  of  its  zealous 
fathers,  who  took  all  men  for  their  congre- 
gation, and  found  pulpits  readily.  Leaning 
sometimes  against  the  swaying  mast,  while 
he  proclaimed  the  truth,  Francis  Asbury 
was  not  less  fitly  supported  for  his  office  than 
if  he  had  steadied  himself  by  aid  of  a  richly 
carved  and  costly  desk,  and  his  experience 
proved  that  men  are  men  and  in  need  of  the 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  95 


gospel  of  Christ,  everywhere,  in  church  and 
out  of  it,  on  ocean,  or  on  shore. 

At  the  end  of  their  voyage  Joseph  Pilmoor 
and  the  little  society  at  Philadelphia  met 
Asbury  and  Wright  with  the  utmost  good 
will.  "The  people,"  he  wrote,  "looked  on 
us  with  pleasure,  bidding  us  welcome  with 
fervent  affection;  and  receiving  us  as  angels 
of  God."  They  preached  in  the  large  church, 
then  separated,  Wright  to  Bohemia  Manor, 
Maryland ;  Asbury  to  New  York  by  way  of 
the  Jerseys,  where  he  stopped  to  preach  in 
the  courthouse  in  Burlington.  At  Staten 
Island,  three  sermons,  delivered  in  the  home 
of  Peter  Van  Pelt,  laid  the  foundations  of 
permanent  work. 

At  Wesley  Chapel,  John  Street,  he  took 
for  his  theme  the  apostolic  declaration,  which 
his  own  career  so  well  exemplified,  "I  am  de- 
termined not  to  know  anything  among  you, 
save  Jesus  Christ,  and  him  crucified."  His 
words  were  powerful,  and  he  was  himself 
moved  by  the  effect  which  they  produced 
upon  the  whole  audience,  including  a  consid- 
erable number  of  Negroes,  who  seemed  espe- 
cially affected.    Everywhere  such  attention 


96  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


was  given  his  message  that  he  was  led  to 
write,  "I  think  the  Americans  more  ready  to 
receive  the  word  than  the  English."  From 
the  first,  Asbury  took  the  New  World  to  his 
heart,  just  as  every  ambassador  of  Christ  to 
any  community  ought  to  do.  The  man  who 
does  not  identify  himself  with  his  constitu- 
ency lacks  leverage,  and  possesses  relatively 
little  power  to  move  the  mass. 

Entrance  upon  an  untried  field  of  labor  is 
certain  to  be  attended  with  some  form  of 
temptation  and  trial.  The  young  itinerant 
suffered  much  from  the  cold  and  exposure  of 
his  first  Northern  winter,  which,  however,  did 
not  chill  his  ardor,  nor  prevent  relentless 
activity.  Many  towns  in  the  region  of  New 
York  were  evangelized.  The  life  of  the  so- 
cieties was  quickened,  converts  were  made, 
and  new  classes  organized.  The  undisci- 
plined condition  of  much  of  the  work,  espe- 
cially in  the  cities,  was  a  grievous  problem 
to  one  trained  under  the  personal  influence 
of  John  Wesley.  At  the  very  outset  Asbury 
criticized  this  laxity,  and  set  himself  to  its 
correction.  He  aroused  opposition,  but  as 
his  acquaintance  and  authority  increased,  his 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  97 


insistence  upon  regularity  became  more  in- 
fluential. The  day  after  certain  "sharp  de- 
bates" had  taken  place  at  John  Street,  a 
letter  came  from  Wesley  requiring  "a  strict 
attention  to  Discipline,"  and  making  the 
courageous  administrator  of  the  rules  "his 
assistant,"  and  thus  the  virtual  head  of  the 
American  societies.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted 
that  this  recognition  was  wise. 

Moreover,  the  correction  of  lax  methods 
of  life  and  service  proved  to  be  of  lasting 
value  to  Methodism.  Even  in  this  later  day 
there  are  some  who  believe  that  loyal  admin- 
istration and  observance  of  Discipline,  not 
in  matters  of  "mint,  anise,  and  cummin,"  too 
often  and  too  officiously  tithed,  but  in 
"weightier  matters  of  the  law,  justice,  mercy, 
and  faith,"  would  strengthen  the  body  of 
Christ,  and  tend  to  enlarge  the  borders  of  his 
kingdom.  It  is  a  false  philosophy  which 
holds  that  adherence  to  moral  principle,  and 
to  high  standards  of  Christian  character  and 
conduct,  injures  the  church  and  restricts 
its  opportunities.  Whatever  may  be  the 
temporary  effect  of  just  and  wholesome  re- 
straints, it  is  the  church  that  governs  its  peo- 


98  FRANCIS  ASBURY 


pie  that  has  many  people  to  govern,  while, 
as  a  rule,  religious  organizations  of  loose  re- 
quirements have  loose  affiliations,  and  draw 
little  upon  the  world.  A  shrewd  old  farmer 
once  wisely  observed,  "I've  alius  noticed  that 
when  you  let  down  the  bars  there's  more 
critters  want  to  git  out  than  want  to  git  in." 

"While  I  stay,"  said  Asbury,  "the  Rules 
must  be  attended  to.  I  cannot  suffer  myself 
to  be  guided  by  half-hearted  Methodists." 
He  was  no  less  fixed  upon  "the  Methodist 
plan"  of  an  itinerant  ministry.  He  sought 
— how  strangely  this  affects  the  mind — "a 
circulation  of  preachers,  to  avoid  partiality 
and  popularity."  He  resisted  the  pressure 
of  those  who  would  gladly  have  made  him,  as 
a  brilliant  young  preacher,  their  permanent 
pastor.  He  succeeded  in  securing  for  a  con- 
siderable time  a  succession  in  appointments 
every  six  months. 

Methodism  has  long  since  been  compelled 
to  adapt  itself  to  the  needs  of  settled  com- 
munities and  of  complex  conditions.  But, 
however  unavoidable  and  necessary  this 
change,  it  must  not  be  pressed  too  far.  Is  it 
not  a  most  unmethodistic  and  indefensible 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  99 


partiality  which  separates  preachers  of  the 
gospel  into  "grades,"  of  which  we  hear  so 
much,  especially  when  the  classification  is 
based  upon  salaries  received?  As  to  popu- 
larity, how  can  it  be  avoided?  How  indeed, 
unless  to  a  reasonable  degree  by  a  little 
greater  fidelity  to  Christ  and  to  the  needs  of 
his  people.  But  who  wishes  to  escape  popu- 
larity, or  regards  himself  in  danger  of  the 
Master's  "Woe,  when  all  men  shall  speak 
well  of  you"? 

Now  began  a  period  of  constant  and  cour- 
ageous travels  from  New  York  to  Philadel- 
phia, Baltimore,  and  Virginia.  Like  a  flame 
of  fire  Asbury  swept  through  the  colonies, 
preaching,  Visiting  the  sick  and  the  sinful, 
organizing,  establishing,  guiding  the  work 
of  God.  He  was  too  strenuous.  Most  men 
belong  to  one  of  two  classes,  those  who  get 
tired  and  rest,  and  those  who  rest  before  they 
get  tired.  Francis  Asbury  belonged  to  a 
third  and  rare  group  of  tireless  toilers,  with 
whom  those  of  less  energy  cannot  keep  pace, 
and  who  sometimes  arouse  the  impatience  of 
those  less  consecrated.  No  wonder  com- 
plaints went  to  England,  and  that  in  1773 


100         FRANCIS  ASBURY 


Thomas  Rankin  was  appointed  and  sent  to 
America  as  general  assistant,  not  to  supplant 
his  younger  associate,  but  to  bring  to  his  aid 
the  wisdom  and  balance  of  riper  experience. 
The  result  might  have  been  wholesome  had  it 
not  been  for  the  inability  of  Rankin  to  adapt 
himself  to  the  American  character.  Political 
conditions  were  now  unsettled.  Revolution 
was  impending. 

In  1773  the  first  Conference  was  held  by 
the  Methodist  societies,  which  were  thence- 
forward more  closely  bound  together.  As- 
bury  became  chief  preacher  on  Baltimore 
circuit,  and  met  his  twenty-four  appoint- 
ments regularly,  in  one  year  doubling  the 
membership,  building  five  chapels,  and  open- 
ing so  many  new  preaching  places  that  four 
circuits  had  to  be  created  from  the  territory. 
The  next  year  he  spent  in  New  York  and 
Philadelphia,  and  then  returned  to  Balti- 
more, where  he  received  news  of  the  affair 
at  Concord  between  the  men  of  Massachu- 
setts and  the  royal  troops.  Though  he  was 
English  born,  this  event  did  not  cause  As- 
bury  to  lose  his  poise,  or  give  voice  to  any 
hasty  word.    "Surely,"  said  he,  "the  Lord 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  101 


will  overrule,  and  make  all  these  things  sub- 
servient to  the  spiritual  welfare  of  his 
church."  He  had  learned  higher  patriotism 
than  that  of  native  land,  and  devoting  him- 
self not  to  an  earthly  but  to  a  heavenly  King, 
proceeded  to  his  labors  in  Virginia,  where  a 
letter  from  Rankin  informed  him  that  he 
with  others  "had  deliberately  concluded  to 
return  to  England." 

Not  so  the  mind  of  Francis  Asbury.  He 
had  become  naturalized  and  Americanized. 
"I  am  determined,"  he  replied,  "not  to  leave, 
let  the  consequence  be  what  it  may."  All 
the  other  English  preachers  recrossed  the 
sea,  but  Asbury  remained  at  his  post.  At 
first  suspected  of  disloyalty,  once  arrested, 
once  shot  at,  confined  for  a  period  to  the 
home  of  his  friend,  Judge  White,  of  Dela- 
ware, and  at  another  time  forced  to  take 
refuge  in  the  swamps,  he  made  good  use  of 
all  opportunities  for  advancing  the  interests 
of  Methodism.  When  proofs  of  his  fidelity 
to  his  adopted  land  fell  into  the  hands  of 
American  officers,  he  took  advantage  of  their 
marked  change  of  attitude  to  increase  his 
activities. 


102         FRANCIS  ASBURY 


The  period  from  1777  to  1781  was  char- 
acterized not  only  by  political  agitation,  but 
by  controversy  within  the  young  societies 
over  the  right  of  its  preachers  to  administer 
the  sacraments.  The  now  assured  leader- 
ship and  preeminence  of  Asbury  bore  the 
test  of  this  season  of  difficulty.  The  work 
went  on  effectively  until  the  Conference  of 
1784  witnessed  the  formation  of  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church,  in  which  Coke  and 
Asbury  ordained  elders  for  the  full  offices  of 
Christian  ministry. 

The  itinerant  labors  of  Asbury  really 
lasted  all  his  lifetime,  for  in  the  highest  office 
he  was  still  an  itinerant.  In  all  he  traveled 
more  than  two  hundred  and  seventy  thousand 
miles,  and  preached  more  than  sixteen  thou- 
sand sermons.  Afoot  and  on  horse  back  or 
by  slow  and  lumbering  carts  and  carriages, 
he  ventured  through  forests,  across  plains, 
and  over  mountains,  north  and  west  and 
south,  making  acquaintance  of  every  settle- 
ment from  Boston  to  Georgia,  and  from  the 
seaboard  to  the  wilds  of  Ohio. 

Sorely  afflicted,  and  often  temporarily  in- 
capacitated for  service  by  malaria,  rheuma- 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  103 

tism,  and  neuralgia,  he  pressed  forward  in 
a  path  which  meant  exposure  to  storm  and 
cold,  sleeping  in  unsanitary  cabins  and  under 
the  open  skies,  and  preaching  when  chilled 
by  wintry  winds,  or  burning  with  fever. 
Nothing  could  conquer  his  passion  as  an 
apostle  of  Christ,  or  lead  him  to  betray  weak- 
ness in  the  face  of  duty.  He  fearlessly  at- 
tacked the  evils  of  his  time,  including  slavery. 

His  early  education  was  meager,  for  a  rea- 
son which  must  awaken  painful  memory  in 
some  minds,  "a  horrible  dread,"  to  use  his 
own  term,  of  the  schoolmaster's  birch.  Yet 
he  became  a  great  student  and  a  college 
founder.  As  he  traveled  he  read.  It  is  a 
marvelous  list  of  books  which  are  cited  in  his 
Journal.  He  studied  even  Hebrew  on  horse- 
back, and  he  became  proficient  in  the  original 
languages  of  the  Bible  and  in  the  best  liter- 
ature. 

Unlike  Wesley,  Francis  Asbury  lived  in  a 
state  of  single  wretchedness.  How  could  he 
do  otherwise  when  traveling  almost  con- 
stantly, and  living  on  a  salary  of  eighty 
dollars  a  year,  which  until  long  past  middle 
life  it  was  necessary  to  share  with  his  par- 


104         FRANCIS  ASBURY 


ents?  Asbury  was  true  to  his  fellow  itiner- 
ants, and  he  refused,  even  on  the  appoint- 
ment of  Wesley  himself,  to  accept  a  bish- 
opric, unless  elected  thereto  by  the  votes  of 
his  brother  elders.  Thus  he  gave  to  Method- 
ism what  it  does  well  to  guard,  as  well  as 
prize,  a  democratic  episcopacy. 

I  will  not  compare  Francis  Asbury  with 
John  Wesley.  The  two  are  incomparable, 
and  equally  praiseworthy.  Rather  let  us 
think  of  the  American  Francis  in  conjunc- 
tion with  his  European  namesakes  of  eccle- 
siastical history.  Francis  de  Saks  converted 
Calvinists  to  Rome ;  Francis  Asbury  brought 
sinners  to  Christ.  Francis  Xavier  was  a 
flaming  apostle  to  the  cross ;  Francis  Asbury 
was  not  only  a  missionary,  but  an  organizer 
and  a  builder.  Francis  of  Assisi  was  poor 
and  pious;  Francis  Asbury  was  poor,  pious, 
and  no  dreamer  of  impracticable  dreams,  nor 
purveyor  of  superstitions,  however  poetical. 
The  best  qualities  of  the  Roman  Saints 
Francis  were  in  the  sturdy  Protestant,  and 
he  surpassed  them  all  in  sanity  of  mind  and 
in  constructive  statesmanship. 

More  than  any  other  it  was  this  unselfish, 


CENTENNIAL  ADDRESSES  105 


noble  man,  whose  character  and  attainments 
would  have  fitted  him  to  shine  in  any  profes- 
sion or  service,  who  fashioned  the  institu- 
tions of  American  Methodism,  and  of  its  far 
flung  branches,  and  who  made  its  itinerancy 
one  of  the  creative  powers  of  the  world.  In 
the  United  States  of  America  he  is  deserv- 
edly honored.  If  this  nation  is  in  any  wise 
indebted  to  Episcopal  Methodism  for  social 
and  civic  services  and  achievements,  as  un- 
biased students  of  history  declare,  then 
America  owes  a  high  tribute  of  praise  to  the 
chief  itinerant  preacher  of  this  church. 

Francis  Asbury  belongs  to  all  Methodism, 
and  all  Methodism  belongs  to  him.  In  Sa- 
vannah, before  the  tablet  which  marks  the 
spot  whereon  John  Wesley  delivered  his  first 
sermon  in  America,  I  could  but  think  that 
Methodism  is  one  in  Wesley.  In  the  Mo- 
hawk valley  of  New  York  and  again  upon 
the  fields  and  beside  the  rivers  of  Georgia, 
my  thought  has  been,  "Here  trod  the  feet  of 
another  mighty  leader  to  whom  all  branches 
of  Methodism  point  with  the  pride  of  owner- 
ship." And  the  prayer  has  often  risen  to  my 
lips,  "In  God's  good  time  and  way,  may 


106         FRANCIS  ASBURY 


Methodism  be  brought  into  an  Asburian 
unity  of  spirit  and  of  fellowship  in  which 
without  restriction,  losses,  or  embarrassments 
of  any  kind,  North  may  again  join  hands 
with  South,  while  East  and  West  bless  the 
bans,  and  as  filial  offspring  enter  into  the 
sacred  relations  of  a  united  and  a  happy  f  am- 

ay." 


* 


DATE  DUE 

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GAYLORD 

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